Part 4: Distress Tolerance
You will find Parts 1, 2, and 3 fascinating, so I suggest you go back and check those out.Meanwhile, let’s plunge into what Distress Tolerance is and how it is a great transition to Internal Family Systems (IFS) work.
Distress Tolerance was developed by a professor named Marsha Linehan who worked specifically with traumatized people that had gotten the label borderline.This label refers to a cluster of behaviors and reactions that show both extreme neediness due to very early life neglect or abuse as well as extreme fear of closeness for the exact same reason.
These emotions would show up as an intolerance for distress, even a little of it. This makes sense because the person was a very young child, usually just an infant, when they were mistreated.Linehan used a number of helpful tools with this group and termed the whole thing Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. I am pulling out just one of those tools to discuss here.
So let’s say that Richy is, to say the least, touchy. If his wife, Marlene, has the least bit of irritation in her voice when she asks, “Did you remember to call your mother for her birthday?” Richy will become angry.He will feel the anger welling up deep inside of him and he will try hard to not let it show. But it will. He may say, “No, okay?” or “Yes, is that alright with you?” in a testy way. Or he may just sigh and not answer.
Either way, any of these responses is really over the top. After all, Marlene asked a question that she thought was reasonable. She knows he doesn’t have a good relationship with his mother, yet she wants to help her husband keep the peace with her.What can Richy do about this before getting deeply into his IFS journey?
Let’s just take a quick look at Richy’s IFS journey first to understand how beneficial it will be to start with Distress Tolerance.
Richy doesn’t even know why he over-reacts to simple reminders. He doesn’t know why the anger is so out of proportion to the situation.Isn’t it funny how people don’t know themselves? They don’t know who they are and they don’t know why they are.
And they don’t even want to find out.
But once Richy has plunged into his self-exploration, he will find out all those things.Will he maybe shed a tear or two?
Yes, it’s possible.
He might discover some painful memories that he didn’t recall.
But he will also feel unburdened, lighter, happier, more connected to himself and to life. Wouldn’t that be worth it?All the Richys who work with us think so.
So Richy will learn to talk to the parts of himself that protect him, or were trying to protect him, since he was a child. He will see himself in memories that are poignant and meaningful and he will be able to rescue the little boy in those memories from those situations.This is not mumbo jumbo although I’ll bet it sounds like it. Our memories can alter and the pain can be released. Our feelings can change.
(For more on this see the Linktree list of links that includes my library of lives and check the Internal Family Systems replays. The Linktree list is in the Guides section of the Facebook group and in your Welcome message that I put on Messenger when you joined. If you don’t have it, please write me for it.) This is the secret behind hypnosis, advertising, the placebo effect, movie music, and other events of daily life in which our mood, feelings, attitude, and opinion can radically change.But Richy hasn’t done this work yet, this delving deep into his feelings and his identity.
This is where Distress Tolerance comes in.
Distress Tolerance is an exercise in which Marlene makes a 30 second recording of her asking that innocent question and now, Richy needs to do his breathing (see Part 2) while listening to the recording.The breathing, of course, calms him down – mentally and physiologically – while the recording becomes boring.
So Distress Tolerance is a way to “get used to” something bothersome through another one of those bottom up exercises.To review, “bottom up” means you don’t have to convince yourself of anything; you don’t have to think positive thoughts. You just feel better automatically. Your physiological response just kicks in.
You know what this is like?
You walk into a room that had a bad smell and after a few minutes you don’t notice it any more.Warning: No one should ever use this technique to “not care” about being abused. If you’re being abused, you must leave the situation. This is for the simple things in life that shouldn’t bother you but they do.
How This Integrates With IFS
You can see that by doing Distress Tolerance first, you are so well-prepared for the close Self-examination that IFS requires that it won’t be quite as emotionally challenging.You will breathe through it and you will be amazed at how well you can handle it.
What situations in your life were you “getting used to” this way without even realizing it? Was that a good thing or not?