by Dr. Mary Powell
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is a popular and proven therapy created by Marsha Linehan, who emphasizes the importance of “mindfulness.”
In mindfulness, according to DBT, we’re never the same person. We’re one person for our co-workers, another person for our partners, another for our friends.
DBT introduces three states of mind: the emotional mind, the reasonable mind, and the wise mind.
Emotional mind is when our mind is ruled by emotion, while the opposite state is reasonable mind, which is when our mind is ruled by logic.
Neither state of mind is a problem. However, if we stay in either state of mind too long, then the other will eventually pop up, and Linehan said that neither has the capacity to deal with the other. They’ll just fight.
If we tell ourselves, for example, that we’ll just have to “think positive” the next time we get down, it won’t work. We can’t create emotions with logic, and logic has no ability to calm emotions. Eventually, we swing back and forth between emotional mind and reasonable mind. Negative thoughts lead to negative emotions, and vice versa.
This back and forth creates suffering.
DBT teaches that we need to live as much as possible in wise mind, which brings together emotion mind and reasonable mind — feeling and logic. For example, I could do this by noticing my depressed feeling (emotion mind) and state with objectivity, “I feel depressed” (reasonable mind).
Wise mind is a centered place to be. We’re neither emotionally suffering nor overthinking.
There are other ways to find wise mind. We can look for that centered feeling in our bodies, our gut, between our eyes, our breathing, whatever works for each person. DBT also recommends observing with our five senses. What do I see? Taste? Smell? Hear? Touch? We can do soothing things that involve repetitive movement, like exercising, gardening, petting our animals, or brushing our hair.
Wise mind also makes us act from our life experiences.
For example, I may not want to clean my room. My emotional mind moans, “I don’t want to clean my room.” My reasonable mind scolds, “I should clean my room.” Wise mind combines the two by saying, “I don’t want to clean my room, which is OK. And cleaning my room would be the productive thing to do.”
Jesus acted at times from emotional mind: when he broke things at the Temple in anger and when he yelled at the religious authorities in front of crowds in Jerusalem that he was the Son of God, giving them reason to arrest him.
But I have no doubt that Jesus operated from wise mind most of the time, including when he dealt with toxic people. People would test him, and when he responded, they wouldn’t know what to say. They would back off and walk away.
For me, there is one perfect example of Jesus speaking brilliantly from wise mind: the famous story of the woman caught in adultery. When crowds chased her, she collapsed near Jesus. Everyone gathered to stone her. Jesus was sitting on the ground, head down. The religious authorities stared at him. It appeared as though he was ignoring them. He glided his finger through the dirt repeatedly.
Upon asking, the authorities knew that Jesus would probably say that they should not put the woman to death. If he said they shouldn’t, they could get him in trouble because adultery was against the law. But if Jesus said they should, this would contradict his message of love and cost him his followers. They thought they had him cold.
I think that Jesus was in emotional mind when this incident began to unfold. Who wouldn’t be? Looking down at his finger in the dirt, he may have been thinking, “These people won’t leave me alone.” Or, “How can they do this?”
In my opinion, Jesus got himself into wise mind by being mindful of the dirt and what he was doing to it. They pushed him to answer. When he’d had enough of the dirt, he slowly lifted his head and said, “He among you who is without sin, let him cast the first stone.”
Having likely emerged from wise mind, he cleverly stated both sides. That it was the law to kill her AND that it was hypocritical and cruel. The authorities and crowds had nothing to say. They looked at their rocks, looked at each other, and left.
People of Jesus’ time were in emotional mind from being poor, stressed, and oppressed. The crucifixion was filled with emotional minds. Religious authorities read the Scriptures to people with excessive reasonable mind lecturing so that they could barely be understood.
I can be an emotional person. I also spend excessive time in reasonable mind being the workaholic that I am. A part of me prefers the drama in emotion mind and a part of me prefers the getting thousands of things done in reasonable mind.
Fortunately, both Jesus and DBT teach ways to get into wise mind.
In my opinion, Jesus would love DBT. Linehan aimed to get people in control of their minds instead of their minds controlling them. So did Jesus.
We could all use more time in wise mind to bring together the head and heart so that we can better handle ourselves when life crucifies.
Mary Powell, PhD, LCSW, NCPsyA, is a psychotherapist and professor at Fordham University.