What is the difference between Chi for Two and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)?

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) was created by Marsha M. Linehan. DBT is a leading treatment for self-harm, anxiety and depression, especially among adolescents. DBT is considered a second or third-tier Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. DBT adds a mindfulness component. Dee Wagner (originator of Chi for Two) and Caroline Gebhardt (developer of Chi for Two) often explain playfully that Chi for Two can be seen as a “mega-mindful” version of DBT.

Both Dialectical Behavior Therapy and Chi for Two invite awareness of the body's sensations that precede "acting out." Both offer specifically designed therapeutic experiences to help clinicians and parents become available to validate the sensations that bodies experience. When we become mindful of the sensations we feel and curious and compassionate about those sensations, it helps our bodies direct the movement expressions that arise out of those sensations toward useful targets.

Chi for Two adds an understanding of the origins of those sensations multi-generationally. Chi for Two deepens DBT with psycho-education related to the infant "fighting” rhythms. Child psychiatrist Judith Kestenberg and colleagues identified infant rhythms that develop from birth through the early years when we wire our nervous system patterning. Half of those rhythms are called "fighting" rhythms.

When parents, teens and even kindergarteners recognize percussive outward-extending movements as part of healthy development, those movements can be celebrated and directed to socially useful targets. We can use the urge to bite to speak articulately, maybe in a rhythm and with words that rhyme as occurs in spoken word.

The "fighting" rhythms can be satisfactorily directed toward many musical instruments, gardening work, and construction work. In 2018, Wagner wrote an article on the fighting rhythms in the yoga-loving magazine Elephant Journal. https://www.elephantjournal.com/.../how-fighting-rhythms.../

Linehan shares about her journey as an adolescent who was given a diagnosis of schizophrenia. Over the years, she began to recognize that the diagnosis of borderline personality disorder would have been more accurate. Borderline tendencies are now recognized as attachment trauma—multi-generational trauma patterning that makes it difficult to have authentic relationships with other people.

In Chi for Two, we invite clients to recognize the energetic dance of relationship, as does DBT, but Chi for Two goes deeper into attachment trauma by including awareness of the “fighting rhythms.” It helps us to know that our animal bodies are designed to attach to the body we come out of and then our bodies are design to "fight" the body we come out of. Knowing that the infant "fighting" rhythms help us individuate helps us feel less "crazy" when those movement expressions awaken.

Stephen Wagner (Chi for Twodeveloper) has a degree in anthropology specializing in healing modalities from various cultures. He has practiced many mindfulness modalities and brings deep awareness of how current understanding of nervous system patterning and trauma can enrich ancient practices such that they better facilitate trauma healing