Emotion Regulation: Opposite Action
Opposite action is another one of the most important DBT skills! Opposite action is about acting opposite to emotions that don’t fit the facts. Acting opposite to emotion can change your emotional reaction and allow you to achieve your goals without being trapped in negative emotion.
A step by step way to use opposite action is to first identify the emotion you want to change. Then, check the facts to see if your emotion fits the facts and if your emotion will allow you to achieve your goal. If your emotion does not fit the facts and is not effective, then you need to identify an action urge. What is your initial urge? After identifying that, act all the way opposite to your action urge. Repeat this process until your emotions go down and you are able to achieve wise mind and have more effective action urges.
For example, you are very anxious and sad and your initial action urge is to self-harm. Self-harming is not an effective way of dealing with your emotions. Use opposite action to not self-harm (this could be in the form of distraction, self-soothing).
