Working the TOM: One Path to Dialectical Thinking (Part 8 of 10)
Dialectical thinking is all about letting go of the extremes, learning to think more in the middle, learning to be more flexible with your cognitions, learning to see things from someone else’s perspective, learning to see things from multiple perspectives in your own head, and learning to update your beliefs when presented with new information.
When I teach dialectical thinking to clients, I use a very simple process: We work the TOM, which stands for Thought, Opposite and Middle. First, we identify the original problematic thought. Next, we identify the complete opposite extreme of that cognition. Finally, we brainstorm a possible belief somewhere more in the middle.
Let’s assume a client has the original problematic thought of “I am not good at anything.” The complete opposite extreme would be: “I have never once made a mistake. I am absolutely flawless. I am the most competent human specimen that has ever existed.” And something more in the middle might be: “There are some things I am OK at, but there are also lots of things that I need to work on.”
The purpose of this exercise is to help clients quickly identify a cognition that is most likely much more accurate than the original belief. Clients may not always be able to come up with a middle thought on their own, so it is completely fine to help them at first. Eventually, however, it is better if clients can generate their own middle thoughts because whatever they produce will inherently be more believable than whatever you come up with. Even if the client insists they do not believe the middle thought that they generated, chances are that part of them does — because those words came from their mind. Regardless, your job is not to try to convince your client that the middle thought is more accurate; it is simply to plant the seed for that thought and then let it germinate on its own.
In fact, the more the client wrestles with the middle thought, the more they are thinking about it, therefore reinforcing the new cognition.
This blog post is an excerpt from Trauma stabilization through polyvagal theory and DBT, an article published by the American Counseling Association on September 14, 2021 by Kirby Reutter.
If you would like to learn more about how to use trauma-focused DBT with a variety of trauma-based disorders, I recommend the following resources to get started:
- The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook for PTSD: Practical Exercises for Overcoming Trauma and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder by Kirby Reutter, 2019
- “DBT for Trauma and PTSD” (DBT Expert Interview series at psychotherapyacademy.org/dbt-interviews)
- Survival Packet: Treatment Guide for Individual, Group, and Family Counseling by Kirby Reutter, 2019
- “The Journey From Mars: Brain Development and Trauma” webinar (youtube.com/watch?v=WSFqHS_axOc)
