Madly Ever After

So in DBT (Dialect Behavioural Therapy) there is a triangle of the internal systems.

The three core systems are:

Threat: what puts you into fligt/fight/freeze or various states thereof

Drive: what motivates you to get out of the threat state

Soothe: What calms you and makes you happy

There’s a constant imbalance between all 3 with Threat and Drive domineering Soothe in a feedback loop between each other.

Soothe is the area that substance use thrives on as it shuts down threat and drive. And there’s no judgement on people that do this. I do it.

So a crudely chalk drawn image of the three in action.

Drive and Threat feed of each other and are strongly resistant to Soothe. Soothe gets compressed and needs to find an outlet somehow. With time and work to reduce the power of Drive and Threat then Soothe can grow and hopefully an equilibrium can form.