Distress Tolerance Skills: ACCEPTS Worksheet
By
HappierTherapy
Author bio
The Happier Therapy editorial team is made up of Masters and PhD counselling psychologists. Each worksheet is created by a team member with exposure to and experience in the subject matter. The worksheet then gets reviewed by a more senior editorial member. This is someone with extensive knowledge of the subject matter and highly cited published material.
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Distress Tolerance skills are a set of Dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) skills that are strategies to help individuals get through difficult emotions and situations and tolerate things that cannot immediately change.
Distress tolerance skills can create short-term relief from painful situations and minimize the risk of impulsive behaviors.
ACCEPTS is an acronym for Activities, Contributing, Comparisons, Emotions, Push away, Thoughts, and Sensation.
What Are The Theories Behind This Worksheet?
DBT is a structured program of psychotherapy designed to provide skills for managing intense emotions, problem-solving, and acceptance-based strategies.
DBT focuses on providing therapeutic skills in mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, interpersonal effectiveness, and The Middle Path.
DBT distress tolerance acronym ACCEPTS is a group of skills intended to help distract individuals and get through challenging situations or difficult emotions beyond their control.
How Will This Worksheet Help You?
This worksheet will help individuals use a variety of strategies to help make challenging situations or difficult emotions more tolerable.
How Should You Use This Worksheet?
Individuals should use this worksheet to cope with uncomfortable or difficult emotions by participating in healthy distracting activities until the feelings lessen in intensity or fade away.
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References
1.-
DBT Self Help. (No Date). Distract with Wise Mind ACCEPTS. Available at: https://dbtselfhelp.com/dbt-skills-list/distress-tolerance/accepts/. [Accessed February 12, 2023]
2.-
Mind Chicago. (© 2022). DBT Distress Tolerance Skill: ACCEPTS. Available at: https://mindchicago.com/articles/distress-tolerance-skill-acceptsnbsp. [Accessed February 12, 2023]
3.-
Psychology Today. (© 2023). Dialectical Behavior Therapy. Available at: https://www.psychologytoday.com/za/therapy-types/dialectical-behavior-therapy. [Accessed February 12, 2023]
