Aftersuffering an emotional breakdownwhile in the hospital,Selena Gomezis seeking an unusual talk therapy treatment used to help patients cope with negative thoughts and behaviors, a source has confirmed to PEOPLE.
The 26-year-old singer is undergoing dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), a therapy method designed to help identify, and then change, negative thinking and behavioral patterns, the source says.
The singer was hospitalized twice within the last few weeks, both times for a low white blood cell count, which can be a side effect forkidney transplant patients.(Gomez had a kidney transplant last year after being diagnosed with the autoimmune disease lupus.)
During her second recent hospital visit, Gomez suffered a panic attack. “She has had a tough few weeks and the panic attack in the hospital was the tipping point,” a source tells PEOPLE.
TMZalso reports that Gomez is undergoing DBT treatment — something that she has been open about receiving in the past.
“DBT has completely changed my life,” shetoldVoguein 2017. “I wish more people would talk about therapy. We girls, we’re taught to be almost too resilient, to be strong and sexy and cool and laid-back, the girl who’s down. We also need to feel allowed to fall apart.”
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“DBT is a very concrete, very practical treatment, and it’s focused on helping the client to increase their coping capacity,” says Melissa Gerson, the founder and director of Columbus Park Collaborate, an outpatient treatment center in New York City with a comprehensive DBT program.
Gerson tells PEOPLE, “It’s not necessarily about doing a lot of talking about the emotional origins of your struggles or difficulties, but instead it’s more about focusing in on and increasing awareness of what’s troubling you and awareness of what you’re feeling, and then giving you a host of concrete and practical skills that you can use in that moment.”
Among those skills are self-soothing and emergency crisis skills “that help you when your feelings are really at a 10,” Gerson says.
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DBT treatment focuses on acceptance and change as its ultimate goals. It’s about “being more aware in a nonjudgmental way of what you’re feeling in the moment,” Gerson says.
The treatment involves learning the skills from a therapist in a group setting, and then meeting individually with the therapist in between sessions. Patients also typically track their feelings and behaviors on a diary card.
“It takes about six months to get through a full cycle of DBT, to learn all of the skills,” Gerson explains. “Typically it’s recommended that after six months, you then repeat the cycle so you can reinforce the skills. So in general it should be a one-year treatment.”
Gerson notes that although DBT is a time-limited therapy that can be applied to your life in the moment, the “big-picture” skills patients learn hopefully last a lifetime.
“There are a lot of skills that involve taking care of yourself, self-soothing, bringing yourself back to baseline when you’re feeling like your emotions may be getting out of control,” she says. “These skills help you bring your behaviors under control when you’re feeling emotionally very activated or very distressed.”
source: people.com
