Mode Management

Using the RAAVEN to Practice Mode Management

Modes are the behavioural responses our parts use to cope. Sometimes our modes are effective for Living the Life we Want to Live, and sometimes they are not. Mode management is all about supporting effective and adaptive choices in our behavioural responses. We do this by creating new habitual responses by practicing them in our daily routine, working the skills of DBT Distress Tolerance on a daily basis. Finding the specific times in a day that are triggering, and using these times to practice the skills of ACCEPTS and IMPROVE to create the new habits we need to create. Choose one thing from these lists at these particular times of day, and practice, practice, then practice some more, so these new behavioural responses will be a part of our repertoire when we need them the most.

The principles of Living the life I want to live are at the core of everything we do in this model of behaviour change, so before we get into using the skills of Mode Management that can help us be the person we want to be, there’s a couple of things we need to make sure we have in place. First, it's incredibly important to have a solid foundation from which to build. So, take some time to complete the exercises attached to the videos on this subject. Look at your support network, and consider what you need to make it stronger, to set boundaries with people, and to structure your circle of support in a way that's effective for you to live the life you want to live.

“Effective and adaptive Mode Management is dependent on our system being free from the rigid perspective of an individual part. This is the very essence of Dialectical Thinking.”

Steven Morris RP.

Next, look at your daily routines and set up your life to achieve the success you're trying to achieve. Without routine and structure, it's incredibly difficult to make behavioural changes, because it's too easy for us to slip into old behavioural responses. Routine and structure builds new habits. Research has proven, time and time again, that following a guide and tracking what we do leads to success in any type of program that's intended to create behaviour modification. Try, to the best of your ability, capability, and willingness, to take care of yourself physically. Once again, research has shown that our physical wellbeing is strongly linked to our emotional and psychological wellbeing too.

Give yourself the best chance of success by taking the medication and supplements that are needed, in the way they were intended to be taken. List your barriers to treatment, and the resources you can use to overcome these barriers. This includes what it looks like if you're slipping into a relapse mode. Make sure you’re eating a healthy diet, avoiding mood altering substances, exercising regularly, practicing good sleep hygiene, and doing these daily to create the consistency we need for this to become just something that we do. All of this is wrapped up in the DBT PLEASED skill, so take a look at the video that's available on this subject.

Finally, when it comes to building our foundation, it's important to be practicing the skills of mindful awareness, according to the DBT philosophy on this subject. There is no right or wrong way to practice mindfulness, so whatever you're doing, if it's working, keep doing it. At the same time, learn to pay attention to what's happening in your system at different points in your day. Listen to your thoughts, your feelings, your physical sensations, and your urges to act. Observe and describe them as parts of your personality, nonjudgmentally and effectively. For more on the way we do this, take a look at the video on the DBT what and how skills.

“Dialectical thinking is only possible through Cognitive Defusion, without it we blend with a part of our personality and follow its behavioural response without questioning its effectiveness.”

Steven Morris RP.

Living the Life I Want to Live is about living according to our true authentic values and beliefs, so the second thing we need to do before we talk about Mode Management, is make sure we’ve taken the time to complete the exercises on this particular subject. Recognise which areas of life are important to you, right now, and have a solid understanding of what it looks like for you to be the person you want to be in those areas of life, as these are the beliefs that create the code by which we are basically trying to live. Driving our metaphorical bus in this general direction is a difficult thing to do, as what generally gets in the way are the many different stories we’ve created in the past.

When one, or multiple versions of these stories are active in our system, we are usually in a fear-based state which, in this work, is what we know as “distress.” Practicing Mode management is all about managing the parts of our personality that are reacting to this distress. Fight, flight, freeze, submit, or distract are the responses we use to cope. Instead of falling into old behaviours that are not wrong or bad, just often maladaptive and ineffective, we learn to activate new effective and adaptive behaviours that keep us in line with Living the Life we Want to Live, according to our true authentic values and beliefs. Values and Beliefs drive all of the work, so know what these are for you. When our system’s in Distress, its often because there’s some kind of issue with our values and beliefs, so noticing the distress is an absolutely essential thing to have the capability to do, as it’s the one thing that triggers our mode management skills into action.

In the PDF at the bottom of this page, you will find additional information on the steps we take to practice Mode Management, as well as a copy of the RAAVEN worksheet we use in conjunction with Planning Ahead to Build Mastery to help you develop the narrative we need for Mode Management. If you can download it, print it out, and take the time to use it to work with your known parts to manage their behavioural responses. There are also links to each of the videos and worksheets for each of the skills we need for mode management in the description of the YouTube video connected to this page, so please explore this content to develop you capability to use the RAAVEN skill..

Download the PDF Worksheet