Neil Howell
Psychotherapy
Evidence-Based Treatment
for Disorders of Over-Control

RO DBT is a trans-diagnostic, evidence-based treatment for people with emotional over-control. It has over 25 years of research supporting its efficacy and has been shown effective in multiple clinical trials.

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Self-control is usually seen as a good thing and many therapies provide skills to attain more self-control. However, it is possible to have too much of a good thing and people with emotional over-control often don't benefit from therapies that focus on skills to develop more self-control. Excessive self-control is associated with feeling emotionally isolated and plays a role in anorexia nervosa, obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, chronic depression and autism.

 

The challenge comes in how to address problems of over-control without applying more self-control. In RO DBT we start by focusing on what is healthy in all of us; the need for social-connectedness. Rather than working on how to regulate-emotion or apply more self-control, we prioritize the ways in which over-control is leaving us feeling disconnected from others. RO DBT considers the core components of emotional well-being to be:

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1. Receptivity; openness to feedback. 

2. Flexibility; the ability to recognize that we don't know what we don't know.

3. Social-connectedness in the forming of close interpersonal bonds with at least one other person.

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With these in mind, we target the challenges that interfere in ability to participate in life more fully and move towards life goals including a life worth sharing.​

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If you'd like more information:

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• Listen to me being interviewed on the Skillful Podcast about RO DBT.  https://bayareadbtcc.com/08-emotional-over-control-with-neil-howell-mft/

• Learn more at about RO DBT here.

• Download the Behavior Therapist edition dedicated to RO DBT

• See some of the research on RO DBT

• Contact me

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