Positive psychology is a scientific field that focuses exclusively on the positive aspects of people and life. It covers topics like well-being, happiness, engagement, meaning, positive relationships, optimism, and so on. The premise behind the movement is that for many decades, psychology as a field had been too focused on the so-called ‘disease model’, and in treating mental illness. While this is obviously an important part of psychology (in fact, a number of mental disorders that were once though of as untreatable, can now treated), positive psychologists believe that a fulfilling life is not merely the absence of disease, but is the addition of other factors.

But just because the field is focused on the positive aspects of life, this does not mean that it dismissed the real problems that people face in their lives. It simply proposes that positive experiences also deserve to be studied, in addition, but not instead of, negative or neutral experiences.

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Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is a method for treating those people who have Bipolar Disorder or Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) that combines both traditional Western and non-traditional Eastern psychological concepts. The method was developed by University of Washington psychological researcher Marsha M. Linehan and she has experienced considerable success whenever implementing her plan of therapy.

Those with BPD have an extremely difficult time coping with any crises that may occur in their lives and they are also highly emotionally unstable. BPD is thus somewhat similar to Bipolar Disorder but the extremes of emotion experienced by BPD sufferers don’t usually last as long as those of manic-depressives. Linehan’s breakthrough came when she realized that BPD sufferers were all invalidated as children and that it is this self-destructive behavioral pattern that should be changed instead of the crises being removed.

There are two parts to DBT and both improve a patient’s mental health: group therapy and the one-on-one consultations between a BPD sufferer and their therapist. These methods are also used for bipolar patients. The group therapy sessions concentrate on teaching the patient four very specific skill sets, which are: core mindfulness skills, distress tolerance skills, emotion regulation skills and interpersonal effectiveness skills.

Mindfulness skills comprise the Eastern part of the therapy and pay homage to Buddhist Mindfulness Meditation techniques that teach people to calmly accept whatever happens to them without reacting emotionally to any crises. Distress tolerance skills are specifically aimed at changing behavior patterns for dealing with incidents that create stress, while emotion regulation skills help a patient control the level of their emotions by, for instance, identifying and labeling emotions and identifying obstacles that they put in the way of altering their emotions. Interpersonal effectiveness skills, on the other hand, include teaching patients when to resist changes they don’t want to happen and how to assert themselves.

The weekly individual therapy sessions put the skills learned in the group sessions to work by trying to change specific long-standing negative behavioral patterns, which behavioral patterns are always dealt with in the exact same order.

Given top priority are the parasuicidal – mild to extreme self-injury – and suicidal behavioral patterns and these are closely followed by the patterns that interfere with the patient’s therapy program and then with those that negatively impact on the patient’s quality of life. Patients are also given a chance to practice positive, life-affirming, behaviors including ways to improve their self respect and self-esteem, and ways to set and achieve their own goals.

DBT is a viable alternative to traditional ways of dealing with BPD and Bipolar Disorder by stressing crises management over self-improvement.

A simple overview of the CBT Model: Generally an integrative multisystem model which is used by the cognitive behavioral therapists to plan the treatments and conceptualize the patients. The assessment mainly is done based on the cognitive and behavioral observations. Apart from these, the social, biological, spiritual, interpersonal and some other factors are also taken into consideration.

Levels of Cognition:

Aaron Beck and his co-workers have put forth 3 levels of Cognition which are applicable to the Cognitive Behavioral Theory. They are:

1. Full Consciousness – This is a state in which the normal decisions are made with full alertness, attentiveness and responsiveness.

2. Automatic Thoughts – They are in contrast with the above mentioned cognition. They are more independent, self governing. They are often private and run swiftly in the everyday thinking. They are not so much carefully observed or taken care of. Automatic thoughts mainly depend on the state of ones mind. If depressed, the thoughts will be low, negative and ineffective.

3. Schemas – Also known as core beliefs, rank third and the deepest amongst all the levels for Cognitive Behavioral Theory. They are the templates or the fundamental guidelines for the information processing. They are formed by the numerous life experiences and other developmental influences. They are a common target of CBT interventions as they play an important role in behavioral coping strategies and regulating confidence.

Key Behavioral Theories: During the advancement of modern methods of CBT, the cognitive theories have been very well blended with the findings from the studied of behavioral concepts. Some of the findings from these researches are:

1. Behavioral Techniques are helpful in modifying depressive behavior, lack of interest, low energy and other lessening of psychomotor activities.

2. Behavioral interventions can be very helpful to patients to recover coping, problem solving and social skills. The behavioral interventions involve activities scheduling and other tasks.

3. For anxiety disorders, the exposure therapy and other such methods are beneficial and effective interventions.