The Use of DBT to Treat High-Risk Behaviors in Veteran Populations

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is an empirically supported psychotherapy intervention that has long been used with borderline personality disorder (BPD) populations. Today, it has become a recognized third wave Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) treatment and is often used with individuals suffering from the effects of trauma. However, there is currently a lack of conclusive data illustrating how veterans respond to DBT treatment. This poster reviewed the literature to assess whether veterans exhibiting high-risk behaviors such as Substance Use Disorder (SUD), suicidal ideation (SI), or self-harm benefit from DBT treatments. Several studies have already demonstrated the efficacy of DBT with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) populations, DBT with SUD recovery, and DBT with SI and self-harm. This suggests a strong likelihood that at-risk veterans could and should be a target demographic for DBT. The four core skills that are at the forefront of DBT, namely, mindfulness, distress tolerance, interpersonal effectiveness, and emotion regulation, seem to be key in addressing military-related trauma, which may include combat exposure or commonly, sexual assault. These findings demonstrate the need for larger randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to substantiate the results of isolated studies and draw empirically based conclusions about the use of DBT with high-risk veteran populations.