The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook for Anxiety

Advanced Interpersonal Effectiveness Skills 223

work on. Review the sections in this and the previous chapter regarding skills you want to improve.
Finally, make a specific plan for how you are going to change your behavior next time. Don’t try to
fix too many things because you’ll never remember it all. Just focus on a few changes that might
lead to big improvements. Write down specifically what you’re going to do differently and in which
situations.
Here’s an example. Laura used the Communication Effectiveness Checklist to evaluate an
angry interaction with her boss. She had asked for lighter duties because of a sprained wrist. These
are the items she checked as problems.

 Denigrating (I told him the company didn’t take very good care of its employees.)

 High emotion (I got quickly upset and forgot some of my skills.)

 Myths (I feel like there’s something wrong with me if I ask for anything special.)

 “You” statements (I said, “I feel like you don’t really care what happens to people.”)

 No behavioral description of need (I didn’t specify exactly what “light duty” I was asking

for.)

 Blocks to listening (I used judging and sparring.)

 Mutual validation (I didn’t validate his concerns.)

 Probing (I never found out his concerns.)

Laura realized she couldn’t deal with everything on her list, so she decided to focus on just
a few things:

 Denigrating and “you” statements

 High emotion

 Behavioral description of need

 Probing

Here’s Laura’s written plan:

When I discuss this with Bob again, I’m going to do the following:

1. Be extremely careful to make no critical statements about Bob or the company—no matter

how upset I get.

2. Do a few minutes of mindful breathing to calm down before I talk to him.

3. Watch out for when I feel hot or I’m raising my voice—take a couple of deep breaths to calm

down then.