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What Are Dialectics in DBT?

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Dialectics refers to the process of bringing together opposites and being able to view things from multiple perspectives.
Socrates coined the term dialectics.
Hegel articulated the sequence of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis.
Healing from mental illness requires a restoration of dialectical processes, or finding the middle path between extremes.

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Dialectical Behaviour Therapy : Overview, Origin, Philosophy and Mediators of Therapeutic Change : Dialectical and Core Strategies

2014, Bengal Journal of Psychiatry

Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) has been considered effective evidence based psychotherapy for Borderline Personality Disorder in eight randomized clinical trials. This narrative review provides a brief overview of the treatment and purports to inquire into the dialectical philosophyof DBT and examine the dialectical and core strategies for potential mediators of change: few of those aspects that are unique to this treatment.

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With mounting evidence for its efficacy in the treatment of borderline personality disorder and related problems and increasing dissemination nationally and internationally, front line clinicians in practice settings are increasingly aware of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT). Indeed, it is likely that this treatment is reaching individuals who practice from a variety of theoretical frameworks, such as psychodynamic, humanistic, cognitive, or some combination thereof. Therefore, this paper considers the ways in which DBT is an integrative approach, as well as the issues that may arise in the integration of DBT with other theoretical frameworks or with practices spawned by these alternative frameworks. We recommend that therapists practicing DBT adhere to the behavioral and dialectical theoretical foundations of the approach, in order to provide therapy that is effective, coherent, and consistent.

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Marsha Linehan on “Dialectical Behavior Therapy: Synthesizing Radical Acceptance with Skillful Means”

by William Van Ornum, Ph.D. on June 30, 2012 8:48 am

Marsha Linehan

Marsha Linehan, always a leader in the psychological profession for her work with people with borderline personality disorder, became well known to the public when the New York Times featured a front-page article on her. In this, Linehan revealed her own personal struggle with borderline personality disorder as a teen. She was hospitalized around the age of 17, began a spiritual journey in addition to her psychological struggled, earned a doctorate in clinical psychology at Loyola University of Chicago, and transformed behavior psychology into a much more complex vehicle of therapy that went way beyond identifying/changing measurable behaviors and/or thoughts.

Along with Steven C. Hayes and Victoria M. Follette, Marsha Linehan has co-edited a professional volume, Mindfulness and Acceptance: Expanding the Cognitive-Behavioral Tradition . In the second article in the book, Linehan and co-authors Clive J. Robins and Henry Schmidt III discuss “Dialectical Behavioral Therapy: Synthesizing Radical Acceptance with Skillful Means.

In this article, they note how traditional behavior therapy has eschewed analysis of human consciousness, leading clients to perceive they are not being understood. Since such empathy is an empirically-validated component of all successful therapies, Linehan constructed what she defined as Dialetical Behavioral therapy (DBT) .

There are five elements of DBT: (1)a biosocial theory of disorder that emphasizes transactions between biological disposition and learning; (2) a developmental framework of stages of development; (3) a hierarchical prioritizing of treatment targets within each stage; (4) dilineation of the functions that treatment must serve; and (5) sets of acceptance strategies, change strategies, and dialectical strategies.

DBT can be distinguished from “traditional” behavior therapy in these three ways: (1) a dialectical philosophical framework, (2) the integration of Zen principles and practices within a treatment focused on the application of Western social behavioral principles, and (3) the therapist acceptance strategies of validation, reciprocal communication style, and environmental intervention.

The dialectical aspect of DBT involves bringing together different aspects of a client’s existence that may appear to be disparate or even disjointed. Some may view this as similar to the “insight” process of traditional psychoanalysis. Contradictory truths may stand side by side or may evolve (thesis/antithesis/synthesis). Goal-directed activity is important. The Hegelian notion of a world in process–with a teleological unfolding of Truths–undergirds DBT.

One of DBT’s primary concepts is Core Mindfulness, where there is synthesis of acceptance and skillful means. This draws not only on Zen but also the contemplation of trappist monks and Eastern meditation practices:

“”Mindfulness is both dictated by dialectics and at the center of DBT. It is both the practice of the therapist and the core skill taught to clients. Mindfulness has to do with the quality of both awareness and participation that a person brings to everyday living. It is a way of living awake, with one’s eyes wide open. The roots of mindfulness practice are in the contemplative practices common to both Eastern and Western spiritual disciplines, and the emerging scientific knowledge about the benefits of ‘allowing’ experiences rather than suppressing or avoiding them.”

Radical acceptance is another core concept of DBT: “As a practice, acceptance is highly important in working with impulsive, highly sensitive, and reactive clients. Validation is an active acknowledgement, often offered as an antithesis or synthesis to a distorted expectation or belief. It jumps the tracks of demand, soothing or defusing the emotional arousal associated with failure, feat, shame, unreasonably blocked goals, or a variety of other stimuli.”

Empirical studies have shown that DBT works when it is applied to use with persons with borderline personality disorder . As such, it is a therapy that combines theory and philosophy with efficacious practice.

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Front Psychol

Emotion Regulation in Schema Therapy and Dialectical Behavior Therapy

Eva fassbinder.

1 Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Luebeck, Luebeck, Germany

Ulrich Schweiger

Desiree martius.

2 De Viersprong, Netherlands Institute of Personality Disorders, Halsteren, Netherlands

Odette Brand-de Wilde

Arnoud arntz.

3 Department of Clinical Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Schema therapy (ST) and dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) have both shown to be effective treatment methods especially for borderline personality disorder. Both, ST and DBT, have their roots in cognitive behavioral therapy and aim at helping patient to deal with emotional dysregulation. However, there are major differences in the terminology, explanatory models and techniques used in the both methods. This article gives an overview of the major therapeutic techniques used in ST and DBT with respect to emotion regulation and systematically puts them in the context of James Gross' process model of emotion regulation. Similarities and differences of the two methods are highlighted and illustrated with a case example. A core difference of the two approaches is that DBT directly focusses on the acquisition of emotion regulation skills, whereas ST does seldom address emotion regulation directly. All DBT-modules (mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, interpersonal effectiveness) are intended to improve emotion regulation skills and patients are encouraged to train these skills on a regular basis. DBT assumes that improved skills and skills use will result in better emotion regulation. In ST problems in emotion regulation are seen as a consequence of adverse early experiences (e.g., lack of safe attachment, childhood abuse or emotional neglect). These negative experiences have led to unprocessed psychological traumas and fear of emotions and result in attempts to avoid emotions and dysfunctional meta-cognitive schemas about the meaning of emotions. ST assumes that when these underlying problems are addressed, emotion regulation improves. Major ST techniques for trauma processing, emotional avoidance and dysregulation are limited reparenting, empathic confrontation and experiential techniques like chair dialogs and imagery rescripting.

Introduction

Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) and Schema therapy (ST) have both shown to be effective treatment methods especially for borderline personality disorder (BPD) (Zanarini, 2009 ; Stoffers et al., 2012 ), a disorder that is specially associated with emotional dysregulation. Although both, ST and DBT, have a cognitive-behavioral background, there are major differences in how both methods deal with emotions and emotion dysregulation. This paper provides an overview of background and theory of both treatment approaches, a model how both methods conceptualize emotion dysregulation and the major therapeutic techniques with respect to emotion regulation. Further it is discussed how DBT and ST concepts and techniques map onto the process model of emotion regulation from James Gross (Gross, 2015 ). Similarities and differences of the two methods are highlighted and illustrated with a case example.

Background and theory

Dialectical behavior therapy (dbt)– background and theory, development of dialectical behavior therapy and the dialectic of acceptance and change.

DBT was developed in the late 1980s by Linehan ( 1993a , b ), originally for chronically (para)suicidal patients, then extended to patients with BPD. To that time, these patients had been considered as “untreatable.” A focus on problem solving or cognitive restructuring, according to standard cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), had been experienced as potentially invalidating by the patients and had led to frustration, angry reactions, resistance and treatment drop outs. On the other side, focusing on acceptance and validation has also been perceived as problematic by patients since their problems and behaviors did not change. This led to one of the most important features of DBT, the “ dialectic” of acceptance and change . This means, that therapists, on the one hand accept patient as they are and provide validation for their thoughts, emotions and behaviors, while on the other hand therapists acknowledge the need for change and foster the learning of new skills to deal with problems and to reach personal goals (Linehan and Wilks, 2015 ). This dialectic stance has been inspired by principles of dialectic philosophy (e.g., everything is transient and finite, everything is composed of contradictions, passage of quantitative into qualitative changes, change results from a helical cycle of thesis, antithesis and synthesis).

DBT is currently the most extensively studied and used approach to treat BPD (Stoffers et al., 2012 ). In addition, DBT has been adapted and successfully tested for BPD with several comorbidities and other psychiatric conditions in which problems in emotion regulation lead to psychopathology such as substance misuse (Linehan et al., 1999 , 2002 ; Dimeff and Linehan, 2008 ), eating disorder (Safer et al., 2001 ; Telch et al., 2001 ; Kröger et al., 2010 ), post-traumatic stress disorder (Steil et al., 2011 ; Harned et al., 2012 , 2014 ; Bohus et al., 2013 ), or depression (Lynch et al., 2007 ).

Skill acquisition and the four modules in DBT

DBT conceives emotion regulation skills deficits as the core of BPD. Thus, the main focus of the treatment is the acquisition of a functional emotion regulation. With its CBT background, DBT draws from a broad spectrum of cognitive and behavioral treatment techniques to induce the development of skills in emotion regulation. Skill training is embedded in four modules:

Mindfulness is central to all skills in DBT. The mindfulness skills derive from traditional Buddhist meditation practice, though they do not involve any religious concepts. In DBT it means the practice of being fully aware and present in the present moment, experiencing one's emotions, thoughts or body sensations without judging and without reacting to them. The mindfulness skills are divided into “what skills” (observing, describing and participating) and “how-skills” (non-judgmentally, one-mindfully and effectively). An important concept of this module is “wise mind,” which allows to base decision making on a balance between intuition and facts. The implicit goal is to provide the experience that emotions and cognitions are internal events that are a patterned response to external and internal stimuli. Mindfulness allows watching cognitions and emotions from an observer perspective as separate both from the external world and the self.
Emotion regulation compromises detailed psychoeducation on emotions in general and a broad spectrum of specific emotions to foster an in depth understanding of emotions and emotion regulation. It teaches skills in problem solving, checking reality and taking opposite action to behavioral tendencies associated with specific emotions as well as skills reducing emotional vulnerability. The module intends to give the patient a fresh look on emotions and to decrease emotional and experiential avoidance. A critical feature is to enable the patient to make an active choice between acting with an emotion or opposite to it.
Interpersonal effectiveness teaches how to obtain objectives skillfully and how to act effectively with respect to objectives, relationship and self-respect. The implicit objective is to reduce interpersonal avoidance which is the key to change experiential and emotional avoidance and to increase interpersonal behavior that has a high probability of being positively reinforced.
Distress tolerance focusses on teaching crisis survival skills. It fosters acceptance in situations that cannot be otherwise changed or avoided without making things worse. There is an emphasis on self-soothing, improving the moment and adaptive distraction. Important concepts are “radical acceptance” and “willingness.” The module intends to decrease self-destructive ways of emotional avoidance like self-injury, substance abuse or distraction with risk taking behavior.

Major components of DBT

In standard DBT there are four major components : skills training group, individual psychotherapy, telephone coaching, and consultation team.

DBT skills training group is usually carried out in a group format with approximately eight patients and two skills trainers. The group follows a manualized protocol (Linehan, 2015a , b ). In the original format group members meet once a week for approximately two and a half hours, yet there are varying adaptations to heterogeneous settings. The skills training group focusses on psychoeducation and training of behavioral skills in the four DBT modules mindfulness, interpersonal effectiveness, emotion regulation and distress tolerance. Homework assignments for patients are given every session and aim at practicing the learnt skills in everyday live.
DBT individual psychotherapy is carried out by an individual therapist on a weekly basis with 50 min sessions. The individual therapist is the primary treatment provider and responsible for treatment planning, crisis management and decisions about individual modifications of treatment. The individual therapist supports the patient in the implementation of the skills, he has acquired in the skills training group, helps with trouble shooting and removing obstacles to change and ensures generalization of change. The individual therapy follows a hierarchy with four stages and structured target levels for each stage. The idea is to optimize the change process and to begin the change process with reducing life-threatening and therapy interfering behavior and then proceed to support skills acquisition, treatment of comorbid conditions, finding solutions for problems in living and creating a life worth living. Basic treatment strategies comprise specific dialectical strategies, validation, behavior analysis, didactic strategies and problem solving, commitment strategies, contingency management, observing-limits procedures, skills training, exposure-based procedures, cognitive modification and stylistic strategies like reciprocal communication and case management strategies.
DBT telephone coaching: In crisis situation patients can call their individual therapist outside the sessions and receive support in applying suitable skills. It was designed to help generalize skills into the patient's daily life.
DBT therapist consultation team: Communication between the providers of individual therapy and skills training is very important to support each other in providing the treatment. In standard DBT the therapists meet weekly and review which skills are currently the focus of the group sessions and discuss any problems the patients have in applying the skills. The meetings safeguard that the therapists share a common language and a common knowledge about the skills communicated to the patients. Further they support each other to provide DBT.

Schema therapy (ST)–background and theory

Development of st.

Schema therapy also derives from CBT and was originally developed by Young et al. ( 2003 ) for patients, which did not respond to standard CBT. These patients often had a comorbid personality disorder (PD) and showed complex, rigid, and chronic psychological problems in emotion regulation and in interpersonal relationships, which in most cases could be followed back into their childhood. These problems also impaired the psychotherapeutic process as those patients had difficulties in forming a collaborative relationship with the therapist and could not be reached with standard CBT techniques due to (anticipated) intensive emotional reactions and coping strategies such as avoidance or surrender. In the process of finding ways to address the needs of these patients, Young integrated ideas and techniques from other theoretical orientations into a classical CBT frame (especially attachment theory, Gestalt therapy). A strong emphasis was placed on the biographical aspects for the development of maladaptive psychological patterns through traumatization in childhood and frustration of basic childhood needs. The therapeutic relationship was conceptualized as “ limited reparenting” meaning that the therapist creates an active, caring, parent-like relationship with the patient (Young et al., 2003 ).

ST was developed as a transdiagnostic approach, but also provides disorder specific models for most PDs (see overview in Arntz and Jacob, 2012 ). Several studies have shown that treatment based on that model is very effective for patients with BPD (Giesen-Bloo et al., 2006 ; Farrell et al., 2009 ; Nadort et al., 2009 ; Dickhaut and Arntz, 2013 ), but also for other PDs (Bamelis et al., 2013 ). Good results are also reported for depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, eating disorders, and complex obsessive compulsive disorders (Cockram et al., 2010 ; Simpson et al., 2010 ; Malogiannis et al., 2014 ; Renner et al., 2016 ; Thiel et al., 2016 ).

Central concepts in ST: schemas, coping strategies and modes

ST is based on the idea that aversive experiences and frustration of basic childhood needs (e.g., safety, love, attention, acceptance, or autonomy) lead in interaction with biological and cultural factors to the development of maladaptive schemas. Schemas are defined as organized patterns of information processing compromising thoughts, emotions, memories, and attention preferences (Young et al., 2003 ). Schemas have a strong impact on how individuals view themselves, their relationships to others and the world. Young described 18 maladaptive schemas, e.g., shame/defectiveness, social isolation, mistrust, or unrelenting standards (Young et al., 2003 ). If a maladaptive schema gets activated, associated painful emotions arise. In order to deal with these intensive emotions, coping strategies (surrender, avoidance, overcompensation) are developed that attenuate aversive emotions but impair adaptive interpersonal and self-regulatory behavior.

While working with BPD patients Young discovered that the schema model was not optimal to explain and work with the quick mood and behavior changes of these patients. Thus, he extended the schema theory with the mode model approach, first for BPD later for narcissistic patients (Young et al., 2003 ). Since then, the mode model has be elaborated and empirically tested with specific mode models for most PDs (Lobbestael et al., 2008 , 2010 ; Bamelis et al., 2011 ). A mode is a combination of activated schemas and coping strategies and describes the current emotional-cognitive-behavioral state. A mode can change quickly, while a schema is rigid and enduring (schema = trait, mode = state; Young et al., 2003 ). It is therefore a convenient concept in clinical practice as it helps patients and therapists understand the sometimes quick emotional changes.

Modes can be divided into 4 broad categories:

Dysfunctional child modes are activated when patients experience intense aversive emotions, e.g., fear or abandonment, helplessness, sadness (vulnerable child modes), anger, or impulsivity (angry/impulsive child modes). Child modes develop when major needs, particularly attachment needs, were frustrated in childhood.
Dysfunctional parent modes (punitive or demanding) are associated with self-devaluation, feelings of self-hatred, guilt, shame, or extremely high standards. They reflect internalized negative beliefs about the self, which the patient has acquired in childhood due to the behavior and reactions of significant others (e.g., parents, teachers, peers).
Dysfunctional coping modes describe the excessive use of the coping strategies surrender (Compliant surrender mode), avoidance (e.g., Detached protector mode or Self-soother mode), or overcompensation (e.g., Self-Aggrandizer mode or Bully-and-Attack-mode) in order to reduce the emotional pain of child and parent modes. These modes are usually acquired early in childhood to protect the child from further harm and are therefore considered as “survival strategies.”
The healthy modes of the healthy adult mode and the happy child mode represent functional states. In the healthy adult mode, people can deal with emotions, solve problems and create healthy relationships. They are aware of their needs, possibilities and limitations and act in accordance with their values, needs and goals. The happy child mode is associated with joy, fun, play, and spontaneity. The healthy modes are usually weak at the beginning of therapy.

For a detailed description of all modes see Arntz and Jacob ( 2012 ).

Therapy goals and treatment strategies in ST

The major goal in ST is helping patients to understand their emotional core needs and learn ways of getting needs met in an adaptive manner or to help them deal with the frustration if needs cannot be satisfied. This requires breaking through long-standing emotional, cognitive and behavioral patterns, meaning change of dysfunctional schemas, coping strategies and modes. According to the mode model there are specific goals connected with every mode guiding the treatment: Child modes are supported and comforted. Dysfunctional parent modes are reduced, therapists even “combat” the punitive parent mode. Dysfunctional coping modes should be reduced and replaced by healthier, more flexible strategies. However, as these modes have served as “protective shield” for vulnerable child modes for such a long time, therapists have to proceed particularly careful. Only if the patient feels safe enough in the therapeutic relationship, the adaptive function of the coping modes has been validated enough and their advantages as well as disadvantages have been reviewed cautiously, the patient will be able to reduce his “protective shield” and learn healthier strategies to deal with emotions and relationships. A last important goal is to strengthen the healthy modes. To achieve these goals, mode-specific cognitive, experiential, and behavioral interventions are used, with a strong emphasis on experiential techniques like chair dialogs and imagery rescripting. “ Limited reparenting” (behaving like a “good parent” toward the patient, within the boundaries of the therapy relationship) is central to ST and underlies all therapeutic techniques. “Limited reparenting” serves as an antidote to traumatic experiences and leads to corrective emotional experiences. “Limited reparenting” provides empathy, warmth, protection and care for the patient. However, it may also be necessary to set limits to the patient and to empathically confront him with the consequences of his behavior and the need to change.

DBT and ST models of emotion and emotion dysregulation

How dbt conceptualizes emotion dysregulation.

DBT explains BPD and its symptoms as the consequence of a severe disorder in the emotion regulation system. The genesis of these emotion regulation skills deficits is explained by the interplay of biological factors, learning history and social context (biopsychosocial model). Symptoms such as self-injury, binge eating, alcohol abuse, dissociation, or impulsive behaviors are regarded as coping strategies for intense emotions. Thus, a primary goal of DBT is to teach patients skill to tolerate and regulate intensive emotions.

DBT provides intensive psychoeducation on emotions and the (evolutionary) adaptive value of emotions. Emotions are considered as complex, brief, involuntary, patterned, full-system responses to internal and external stimuli (Ekman and Davidson, 1994 ). The DBT model of emotion and emotion regulation contains six interacting subsystems (Linehan, 2015b ):

Emotional vulnerability factors
Internal and external events that serve as emotional cues (e.g., prompting events)
Appraisal and interpretations of cues
Emotional response tendencies (including physiological, cognitive, experiential responses and action urges)
Non-verbal and verbal expressive responses and actions
After-effects of the initial emotion, including secondary emotions and after-effects of problem behavior like social isolation or problematic peer relationships.

All DBT-modules (mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, interpersonal effectiveness) are intended to improve understanding of own and other's emotions and learning emotion regulation skills. Patients are encouraged to train these skills on a regular basis. DBT assumes that expert knowledge on emotions, improved skills and skills use will result in better emotion regulation.

Although, this model was originally developed for patients with BPD, DBT has been applied in many other psychiatric conditions with data suggesting effectiveness (see above). Thus, it can be seen and used as a transdiagnostic model for optimization of emotion regulation skills in other clinical populations as well as in healthy individuals.

How ST conceptualizes emotion dysregulation

In ST problems in emotion regulation are mainly seen as a consequence of adverse early experiences (e.g., lack of safe attachment, childhood abuse or emotional neglect). Negative experiences in childhood have led to fear of emotions and result in attempts to avoid emotions and (intimate) relationships. Dysfunctional schemas about the self and relationships to other as well as about the meaning of emotions prevail (e.g., “Emotions always hurt” or “to show emotions is a weakness”). ST assumes that when these underlying problems are addressed, emotion regulation improves. Thus, emotion regulation is not directly addressed as in DBT and there is no explicit model of emotion and emotion dysregulation as in DBT. However, emotion dysregulation can be explained by the mode model.

In ST emotion regulation skills improve by experiencing safe attachment and validation of needs and emotions through the specific features of the therapeutic relationship (esp. “limited reparenting” and “empathic confrontation”) and being safely guided through emotional processes with experiential techniques (e.g., processing of traumatic experience with imagery rescripting). Further, experiential avoidance mainly displayed by the coping modes is challenged as it blocks access and fulfillment of the patient's needs leading to enduring aversive emotions. ST assumes that by using these strategies the patient's fear of emotions reduces, while willingness to overcome experiential avoidance increases.

Gross' process model of emotion regulation and its connection to DBT and ST

Gross' modal model of emotion regulation is the currently prevailing generic model to describe the emotion generating process (Gross, 2015 ). It compromises a situation—attention—appraisal—response—sequence : Briefly, the emotion sequence begins with a psychologically relevant situation , which can emerge from the external environment (e.g., being criticized by the boss) or from internal triggers like thoughts, body sensations, or other emotions (e.g., having a thought like “I am a loser”). Such a situation draws the individual's attention (e.g., attention focus on angry eyes of the boss) and gives rise to an appraisal (e.g., “I am going to get fired”). It follows a response including biological/experiential (e.g., heart beating faster, flushing, feeling ashamed or anxious) and behavioral changes (e.g., looking down, apologizing for mistake). This response often changes the situation (e.g., boss feels sorry after apology and says “Well, besides that one mistake, I am very glad that we have you in the team”) and gives rise to a new sequence.

According to the “process model of emotion regulation” (Gross, 2015 ) emotions can be influenced by targeting any component of the situation—attention—appraisal—response—sequence:

Situation Selection by avoiding or approaching situations (e.g., going to a party with nice people to make it more likely to have a feeling of joy or avoiding a critical person to avoid shame)
Situation Modification refers to staying in the situation but adding new behavioral elements (e.g., by asking my friend to give me a hug)
Attentional Deployment refers to selecting a new attentional focus within a situation (e.g., by talking to someone the feeling of shame gets stronger, if one focusses on own performance and mistakes like stuttering instead of shifting the attention focus to the conversation partner)
Cognitive Change refers to modifying the appraisal of the situation or getting a critical distance to cognitions (e.g., saying: “The thought ‘I am a loser’ is a thought not the truth”)
Response Modulation refers to directly influencing experiential, behavioral or physiological components of the emotional response [e.g., taking a deep breath to relax and calm down body sensations (modulation of biological response) or going to an exam although one is afraid to fail (modulation of action response)].

Table Table1 1 gives an overview of the five categories of emotion regulation strategies from the Gross' process model and how DBT and ST concepts and techniques map onto the process model. This results in a theoretical framework that allows the discussion of similarities and differences of these two psychotherapeutic methods with respect to emotion regulation. It is important to note that in this table the primary association between related DBT or ST technique and category of emotion regulation strategies is mentioned, although many techniques address several categories of emotion regulation strategies. In the following we describe the concepts and techniques first for DBT and then for ST and make the connection to every category of the process model of emotion regulation.

Categories of emotion regulation strategies from the Gross' process model, related DBT, and ST concepts and techniques .


Situation Selection	Interpersonal skills deficit Experiential Avoidance Deficit of reinforcement	Planned Activities: Accumulate Positive Emotions, Action to Build Mastery Interpersonal effectiveness	Schema avoidance Schema surrender Schema overcompensation Experiential Avoidance	Psychoeducation in terms of mode model to foster understanding and overcome schema coping/experiential avoidance Empathic confrontation of dysfunctional situation selection that repeats history (e.g., dysfunctional partner choice) Cognitive techniques (e.g., schema or mode diary's identifying triggers, situations and unhealthy coping). Behavioral techniques (e.g., role plays of present situations, planning of healthy steps, stopping unhealthy choices)
Situation Modification	Problem solving skills deficits Interpersonal skills deficit	Problem solving Interpersonal effectiveness skills	Dysfunctional modes vs. Healthy adult mode	Becoming aware of emotional needs and helping patient “modify” situation so that needs are better met. Behavioral techniques (e.g., role plays of present situations, problem solving) Imagery Rescripting and PsychoDrama (Modification of context and situation)
Attentional Deployment	Mindfulness skills deficits	Mindfulness	Schema or mode maintenance (as attention is focused on information that confirms schema/mode)	Attention shift to different modes (e.g., with chair dialog or cognitive techniques), esp. to healthy adult mode
Appraisal	Dialectical dilemmas, Experiential avoidance due to meta-belief on emotions	Dialectic thinking, Validation, Check the facts Reality Acceptance Managing dialectic dilemmas, Walking the middle path	Distortion of information by early maladaptive schemas, Dysfunctional modes vs. healthy adult mode	Identification and re-appraisal of schemas through cognitive techniques (e.g., schema or mode diaries, socratic dialoq, schema-dialog) and experiential techniques (e.g., chair work and imagery rescripting; including trauma reprocessing) Change of meaning of early experiences that underlie dysfunctional schemas
Response Modulation	High emotional reactivity and sensitivity, Emotion regulation skills deficits, Interpersonal skills deficits, Mindfulness skills deficit	Change physiology (TIP skills) Self-soothing Half-Smile/Willing hand	Dysfunctional modes vs. healthy adult mode	Limited Reparenting (modeling and shaping of emotional response in direct contact) Helping to express emotions and needs Modeling of healthy ways to deal with emotions by therapist Empathic confrontation to block problematic emotional reactions and promote functional reactions Emotional exposure Imagery rescripting (processing of traumatic experiences, altering of emotional response) Behavioral techniques including alternative behavioral responses and healthy self-soothing, relaxing strategies.
		Opposite action Interpersonal effectiveness Exposure Behavioral techniques
		Psychoeducation on emotions Mindfulness and Acceptance skills (Identify and Label emotions, Observe and Describe Emotions, Exposure)
		Change Biological Sensitivity (PLEASE-Skills)

Strategies and techniques to regulate emotions

Concepts and techniques for emotion regulation in dbt.

DBT is a treatment model developed for a clinical population. The process model of emotion regulation is a generic model developed in basic sciences two decades later (Neacsiu et al., 2015 ). Yet there is apparently a strong similarity between the conceptualizations of emotion regulation in the process model and DBT. DBT offers specific behavioral and cognitive strategies for the regulation of emotions in each category defined by the process model (Table (Table1). 1 ). The DBT part of Table Table1 1 was strongly inspired by Neacsiu et al. ( 2015 ), who already mapped the DBT model onto the process model of emotion regulation. DBT skills are taken from the recent DBT manual (Linehan, 2015a , b ). As can be seen in the table the category of response modulation has been divided into biological/experiential response and expression/action response . Furthermore, we added managing emotional after-effects of the initial emotion , especially addressing secondary emotions, and managing emotional vulnerability factors to response modulation. In the following the main skills for each category are described. Of particular note is that especially mindfulness skills are essential for every category, since skills of each category afford mindful observing, describing and participating in the present moment effectively and without judgment.

Situation selection

Psychopathology related to this area arises when patient avoid situations that are important for their goals and values or if patients approach situations where they are more likely to have unpleasant emotions. Situational avoidance may result in a deficit of reinforcement and pleasant emotions. From the DBT perspective the difficulties in this area mainly arise from skills deficits resulting in experiential avoidance (e.g., the patient does not go to a date with a friend caring for her to avoid feelings of shame or anxiety). The alternative possibility is that patients with deficits in social cognitions or interpersonal effectiveness skills deficit do not avoid aversive situations that may be avoided without a penalty (e.g., the patient meets with an invalidating friend).

The skill “ Accumulating Positive Emotions ” teaches patients that by approaching pleasant situations or situations that are meaningful in the light of their values and goals, they can increase positive emotions and reinforcement in their daily life in the short (e.g., by creating more pleasant events) and in the long run by living a life fitting their own values. “ Building Mastery” aims at engaging in activities that foster the sense of competence, self-control, and self-efficacy. These two skills have an important overlap with behavioral activation treatment for depression (Kanter et al., 2009 ) and are in line with the strong emphasis on values in acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) (Hayes et al., 2012 ). Moreover, interpersonal effectiveness skills are trained with the patients, where they learn to anticipate the consequences of interpersonal situations (e.g., “if I go dancing, when I feel lonely and have drunken alcohol and flirt with a drunken, older man, there is a high probability that he will try to have sex with me”) and learn to take functional decisions, which situations to approach and which to avoid. Moreover, they learn how to build and maintain functional relationships and end destructing ones.

Situation modification

Successful modification of situations especially affords problem solving strategies and interpersonal effectiveness skills. Patients are taught steps of standard problem solving (D'Zurilla and Nezu, 1999 ) to find and execute effective and doable solutions and to reduce distress in problematic situations. Within interpersonal effectiveness patients learn how to reach their goal in a specific situation without hurting others or damaging their own self-respect.

Attentional deployment

Psychopathology in this area arises if the control of attention is inflexible and not directed to the situational context. Some patients avoid the perception of the situational context by distraction or dissociation because of fears of interpersonal rejection. Others focus their attention inwards on physical symptoms of anxiety or on internal cognitive processes like worry or rumination or try to suppress unwanted thoughts or emotions. Mindfulness exercises in DBT help to keep the focus of attention in the presence and to avoid inflexible attachment to internal events like thoughts and emotions.

Problems in this category are consequences of dysfunctional information processing. DBT assumes that patients have insufficient skills in dialectic thinking, that they do not consider sufficiently the opposing forces that make up inner and outer realities. Patients fluctuate between invalidation of their internal experience on the one side and states of cognitive fusion, when they treat interpretations, assumptions and thoughts and emotions as facts in the outer world on the other side (e.g., “If I am angry, he must have done something wrong”).

One core technique to teach dialectic thinking is validation . Using validation strategies, the therapist communicates to the patient that her behavior makes sense and has a connection to her present context and past learning history. This applies quite particularly when the behavior on the surface appears “dysfunctional.” Uncovering the validity within problem behavior is a crucial prerequisite for changing exactly this behavior. The repeated use of validation strategies by the therapist will finally result in patients using validation as a skill. The skill “ Check the facts” is the dialectic counterpart. It is intended to help patients to view thoughts as thoughts and emotions as emotions and to disentangle thoughts and emotions from actual facts. With this skill patients learn to consider actual facts for their decisions. DBT uses mindfulness skills with their focus on the present context as an antidote to worry, rumination and threat monitoring.

DBT conceptualizes problems in the appraisal category as caused by dialectical dilemmas: Patients often show patterns of dichotomous thinking are stuck in polarities, unable to move to a synthesis and are unable to anticipate or accept change. The skill “ Walking the Middle Path ” from the module interpersonal effectiveness teaches patients to find a synthesis between opposites: e.g., to base decisions on facts while concurrently experiencing intense emotions, to have a strong desire for change while concurrently dealing in an accepting way with the present moment. Further psychopathology in this category arises from meta-beliefs patients have on emotions (e.g., “Emotions are bad and destructive” or “Emotions should always be trusted”). These meta-beliefs, in DBT called “ Myths about emotions,” are challenged and psychoeducation is provided.

Response modulation

DBT explains problems in this area with high emotional reactivity and sensitivity as well as skills deficits in emotion regulation, interpersonal effectiveness, distress tolerance and mindfulness. In DBT it is very important to separate the biological/experiential response including the action tendency, the urge to act with the emotion, from the behavior response itself. One major DBT-skill “ opposite action ” aims acting opposite of the emotion-driven behavior (e.g., to approach a dog although you have dog fear and the emotion of fear tells you to avoid dogs). This skill is indicated when the emotion driven behavior is not in accordance with the facts or the values of the patient. Moreover, managing emotional after effects and vulnerability factors are important subcategories in DBT.

For BPD patients emotions often come with a high intensity of aversive physical sensations causing a high distress and a strong action urge, DBT provides a set of distress tolerance skills . These skills aim to calm down the high physiological arousal and to block acting on maladaptive urges. For example, the “ TIP skills ” (abbreviation for: T ip your face into ice cold water, I ntense Exercise, P aced Breathing, and P aired Muscle Relaxation) teaches patients how to down-regulate their physiological response through temperature change, exercise, breathing, or muscle relaxation. For the down-regulation of distress there are many other strategies in the DBT manual including self-soothing with the five senses, distracting (e.g., with activities) or changing the body posture to a more accepting posture (e.g., half smiling and willing hands ). Half smiling was developed in line with research showing that facial expression influence emotions (Ekman, 1993 ). Patients are supported to develop a “ distress tolerance skill chain” for high distress situations and perform a sequence of distress tolerance skills (e.g., 1. Ice cold water, 2. run steps three times up and down 3. Bite into chili pepper). It is very important to acknowledge the dialectic that DBT aims at mindfully accepting arousal and emotions without judgment while at the same time acting to reduce arousal. These skills serve as crisis strategies in high distress situations to block dysfunctional action urges like self-injury, rage attacks, or alcohol consumption, which lead to a further complication of the situation.

Every emotion comes with an action urge. Many times acting on the urge is effective. If the behavior does not fit the facts or the values of the patient, there is the possibility to modify the behavioral response. An important option for emotion regulation is “ opposite action ” where one explicitly does the opposite of the emotion-driven behavior. This skill of course includes exposure to unpleasant emotions and follows similar principles as exposure-based treatments for anxiety disorders (e.g., approaching the feared stimulus). These principles are transferred to other emotions such as shame, disgust, anger, guilt, or sadness. “Opposite action” is also an important part in the treatment of depression, as proposed by Behavioral Activation (Kanter et al., 2009 ): Patients are motivated to engage in activities and to act opposite to the depression urge of social withdrawal, inactivity and avoidance. Changing action tendencies includes changing the overt action (e.g., being kind to a person one is angry with) but also body language, facial expression, or tone of voice. To address all these components patients are also trained in interpersonal effectiveness . It is important to distinguish opposite action from thought or emotion suppression or submissive interpersonal behavior: Opposite action does not intend to suppress an emotion, but to be mindfully aware and accepting of an emotion and its action urge, but to be able to decide to act differently. Opposite action does not intend to “give in” in contentious issues, it opens up new possibilities for solving interpersonal conflict.

Emotions do not only influence concurrent behavior, cognition and emotion but also future behaviors, cognitions and emotions. Therefore, emotional after-effects of events are an important topic for emotion regulation. After effects may give rise to specific changes in attention, physiology, behavior, and appraisal. Humans avoid or perform specific behaviors because they anticipate specific emotional states. Much of emotional distress is caused by secondary emotions due to judgments about the primary emotion (e.g., evaluation of anxiety as “stupid” leads to intensive shame as secondary emotion. The evaluation of anger as meaning “you are an aggressive person” leads to guilt when the primary emotion of anger occurs). Mindful awareness of these emotion cycles helps to interrupt them and to apply change strategies if necessary. In the first step DBT provides psychoeducation on emotions in general and on specific emotions such as anger, disgust, guilt, joy, love, shame, fear, envy, jealousy, or sadness. For each emotion the adaptive value, typical prompting events (cues), interpretations/appraisals, biological/experiential changes, expression/behavior changes, after-effects, and secondary emotions are explained and words how to describe the emotion are provided. This helps patients to “ identify and label emotions. ” Moreover, patients learn to observe and describe emotions in a non-judgmental way. A very important aspect is mindfulness and acceptance in exposure to emotional experience , especially to the primary emotions. This means “experiencing emotions without judging them or trying to inhibit them, distract from them or to hold on them” (Linehan, 2015b ).

DBT aims at fostering resilience by addressing emotional vulnerability factors. PLEASE is an acronym for treating P hysical I l lness, balanced E ating, avoiding mood- A ltering substances, balancing S leep, and getting, adequate E xercise.

Concepts and techniques for emotion regulation in ST

Although, emotion-oriented interventions and systematic emotional work are central to ST, it is important to keep in mind that in ST regulation of emotions is not in the foreground of ST theory. ST intends to change dysfunctional schemas on the self, on relationships to others and on the world as a whole (as well as on the meaning of emotions), which underlie today's problems. These dysfunctional schemas were developed early in childhood through adverse experiences and gave rise to coping strategies such as avoidance, surrender or overcompensation to deal with (expected) threat or gratification. These coping strategies have often become very rigid and block access to the underlying schemas. Thus, the schemas cannot be changed and the disorder is maintained. ST of course aims to break through these rigid coping mechanisms to reach the dysfunctional schemas, however the ultimate aim is to change the underlying schemas.

Painful emotions and difficulties in regulating them are seen as a consequence of these underlying dysfunctional schemas. For instance, if one's need for emotional intimacy cannot be met because the representation of other people includes that other people will take advantage of you, if they see this “weak” need, or will punish you for having this need, it is understandable that dysfunctional emotion regulation results (e.g., by keeping out of intimate relationships). If corrective experiences in treatment lead to a change of the schema representation of other people, then the problem is resolved. If the representation of emotion entails that emotions constitute a threat, the patient will feel unsafe with emotion, and use avoidance or overcompensation to prevent that emotions are triggered. The aim of ST then is to help the patient feel safer with emotions. Thus, the way patients view, experience and regulate emotions changes substantially through the course of treatment without emotion regulation being directly addressed.

To give a better overview on how emotions are worked with in ST we decided to present ST techniques with special regard to emotions first in line with the basic ST literature (Young et al., 2003 ; Arntz and Jacob, 2012 ) by dividing them in therapy relationship, experiential, cognitive, and behavioral techniques. Afterwards we explain how these concepts and techniques can be mapped to the process model of emotion regulation (see also Table Table1 1 ).

ST techniques to work with emotions

Therapy relationship techniques.

The therapy relationship is an important vehicle for corrective emotional and interpersonal experiences. The major techniques are “ limited reparenting” and “ empathetic confrontation.” With the central attitude of “ limited reparenting ” the therapist provides a good-parent-like relationship characterized by warmth, empathy, support, careful self-disclosure, and safe attachment. He helps the patient to become aware of his emotions and needs, gives support in expressing emotions and needs, validates them and—within certain boundaries—fulfills the needs. Especially important is the fulfillment of needs that were frustrated in childhood. “Limited reparenting” is specifically designed to serve as an antidote to the patient's maladaptive schemas. The therapist directly models and shapes the emotional response of the patient providing external emotion regulation like parents do for their children (e.g., if a patient feels anxious in a vulnerable child mode the therapist provides safety). Moreover, the therapist models healthy ways of intrinsic emotion regulation by showing how he deals with his own emotions and needs. “Limited reparenting” also means to help patients to experience emotions in a safe way without being overwhelmed by emotional distress. Thus, the therapist sets up emotional work in small steps and actively guides through the process.

With “ empathetic confrontation” the therapist challenges experiential avoidance mainly displayed by the coping modes. He emphasizes the adaptive value of the coping mode, and at the same time makes clear that the coping mode blocks access and fulfillment of the patient's needs leading to enduring aversive emotions. Also he promotes functional emotional reactions. ST assumes that by using these strategies the patient's fear of emotions reduces, while willingness to overcome the coping modes increases and by this the pathway to heal dysfunctional schemas opens. In a way, ST-therapy relationship-strategies resemble the way how emotion regulation develops in children. In childhood extrinsic emotion regulation by caregivers is initially dominant (Gross, 2013 ; e.g., a sad child is soothed by its mother, who plays with the teddy bear for the child). By experiencing adaptive extrinsic emotion regulation by caregivers and getting models for intrinsic and extrinsic emotion regulation, children can learn intrinsic emotion regulation (e.g., the sad child soothes itself by playing with its teddy bear) and also extrinsic emotion regulation for others (e.g., the child soothes another sad child in kindergarten by playing with the teddy bear).

Cognitive techniques

Cognitive techniques compromise a range of techniques similar to the techniques also used in CBT. In regard to emotion regulation strategies patients receive intensive psychoeducation on schemas, schema coping, modes, needs, emotions as well as on normal development of children . Within the mode model the therapist illustrates, why and how coping modes developed and validates their function, which is mainly to shelter the child modes from more emotional pain. He explains what children need to develop a healthy way to deal with emotions and points out the differences to the patient's history (e.g., “when a child is angry, it is not okay to tell him, that it is egoistic and to withdraw affection. Every child would feel guilty then. The parent needs to talk to the child, to find out why it is angry and help the child to calm down.”). The therapist fosters mode awareness , in which emotions play an important role (e.g., “if I feel guilty I need to look if this feeling is connected to my punitive parent mode”). He explains the mode-specific goals of ST (e.g., fighting the punitive parent and soothing the child modes) and promotes mode change, best in the healthy adult mode. He helps with the identification and re-appraisal of schemas and mode-related cognitive distortions (e.g., identify “I am worthless” as a cognition of the punitive parent mode, restructuring from healthy adult mode). Other important cognitive techniques compromise reviewing pros and cons (e.g., of coping modes to overcome experiential avoidance) or focusing long-term consequences (e.g., “If I stay in the detached protector, it is not possible to get close to others and I will go on feeling lonely and depressive.”) or writing diaries or flashcards to promote mode awareness and mode change.

Experiential techniques

Experiential techniques including emotional processing of aversive childhood memories are extensively used and are central to ST, which is a main difference to standard CBT. The main focus of ST is on changing dysfunctional schemas and the meaning of emotions and needs through emotional restructuring. As such ST does not place a strong emphasis on typical CBT exposure techniques aiming at habituation and extinction. An emotion is processed until the respective emotion (i.e., sadness, loneliness) and the connected need (e.g., need for attachment) and if necessary its biographical background becomes clear, than the emotion can be restructured. The main experiential techniques are so-called “ chair dialogues ,” imagery exercises , most often imagery rescripting , and historical role play.

In chair dialogs different chairs are used for different perspectives or emotions. In ST, most often different modes are placed on different chairs and dialogs between them are performed. The patient changes the seats and expresses on every chair the perspective and emotions of the related mode. When another mode pops up, the therapist usually asks the patient to change the seat to the chair that symbolizes the popped-up mode (e.g., ‘I hear you have a strong feeling of loneliness. I think this is connected to your vulnerable child mode. Would you please take a seat on the vulnerable-child-chair and tell me how little Tanja feels?’). The therapist helps the patient to express his feelings and needs and to detect and experience different mode perspectives. The therapist might also model to express those perspectives, emotions and needs the patient finds hard to express. These exercises clarify ambivalent emotions and inner conflicts, which is an important diagnostic step to the solution of an emotional problem. Moreover, chair dialogs can be used to restructure modes and emotions leading to new emotional experiences and changes in the dysfunctional schemas, meaning of needs, and emotions. To achieve this, the therapist or the healthy adult mode addresses every mode by adapting his tone of voice, the content of what he says to the mode and his actions following the mode-specific goals of ST (e.g., comfort the vulnerable child mode, fighting the punitive parent mode). Thus, the patient experiences in a highly emotional way, that his needs and emotions are important and that self-devaluation can be reduced.

Imagery exercises can also be used for diagnostic reasons to clarify the biographical origin of dysfunctional schemas and emotional problems as well as related behavior patterns ( diagnostic imagery) . Most often diagnostic imagery exercises start from a current situation associated with strong emotions. The patient is asked to image that situation with eyes closed, the therapist focusses especially on the emotions and where in the body the patient can feel the emotion. When the emotion is clear enough, the therapist asks the patient to wipe away the image of the current situation and just stay with the emotion (affect bridge) and go back to his childhood and see if an image that is associated to that emotion pops up. The childhood image is then again explored with emphasis on emotions and needs. Imagery Rescripting (Arntz and Weertman, 1999 ) is considered to be the most powerful technique to change schemas and the meaning of adverse childhood events and emotions. The patient is asked to image a stressful (childhood) memory related to his maladaptive schemas (e.g., emotional abuse). Such a situation can be found through affective bridges as explained above or can be directly taken from the reports of the patient. When the patient clearly feels the related emotions and needs, the “rescripting part” is started by introducing a helping figure in the image, which modifies the situation to a more pleasant ending for the child, meaning that the child's needs are fulfilled. This helping figure can be the patient himself in his healthy adult mode, if he is already strong enough. For patients with PD this is often not the case in the beginning of therapy. Thus, the therapist or another helpful person (even a fantasy figure) can be introduced as helping figure. In the “rescripting part” the needs of the child are fulfilled, meaning that the perpetrator is stopped and the child is protected and cared for. Aversive emotions such as anxiety, shame or guilt are reduced, while experiencing safety, secure attachment, warmth, love, joy, and other pleasant emotions are promoted. By this, the original meaning of the trauma is changed. For some patients rescripting works better in the form of a role play, for instance if imagery constitutes a problem. Note that from an ST-perspective it is not necessary that the patient relieves the whole trauma, since habituation is not the primary goal.

Historical role-play (Arntz and Weertman, 1999 ) is a form of drama therapy, where therapist and patient play a traumatic biographical memory together as a role play. The patient switches roles by playing his own role (most often as a child) in the first round and the role of the perpetrator (most often a parent) in the second. This helps the patient to see another perspective on the events and to change the meaning of the situation. If a patient e.g., feels unlovable, since his father did not show any interest and was annoyed by the child, the patient can see by overtaking the perspective of the parent, that the father was overwhelmed with work and had never learnt how to show feelings. By this he can understand that it is not him being unlovable, but the circumstances of the situation that made his father act like that.

Behavioral techniques

Behavioral techniques mainly aim at breaking through rigid behavior patterns connected with the coping modes. After many years of dysfunctional coping this behavior has often become habitual and patients lack other skills to deal with emotions and needs. Thus, they need support to learn new strategies. ST compromise a range of techniques similar to the techniques also used in CBT such as behavioral experiments, role play, homework, planning of activities, problem solving , or skill training . If pathological choices (e.g., of abusive partners, of abusive work situations) remain the therapist will also address this on a behavioral level (help patients make healthy choices what to avoid and what to approach). Often it is very hard or even impossible for patients to change their behavior in the beginning of therapy due to maladaptive schemas, thus these strategies have a stronger emphasis later in the course of therapy, and are often prepared by experiential techniques.

Connection of ST techniques to the james gross' process model

In the following we map the ST concepts and techniques on the James Gross' process model of emotion regulation by going through each category of emotion regulation strategies (see also Table Table1 1 ).

Schema therapy explains why patients avoid situations that might be useful for them and do not leave situations that are harmful using the concepts of schema avoidance, schema surrender, and schema overcompensation. It is assumed that dysfunctional child, parent and coping modes are responsible for problematic avoidance behavior or inaction. ST uses psychoeducation about the mode model to help to understand and overcome problematic schematic coping and experiential avoidance. Empathetic confrontation is used to confront patients with dysfunctional situation selection that repeats history and by this maintains schemas (e.g., dysfunctional partner choice). Behavioral techniques like role plays of the present situation and actively changing what situations to select may be used to foster transfer of behavior from the therapy session into the life of the patient.

Similarly, ST assumes that problem solving skills that are necessary to improve situations may be blocked by schema avoidance, schema surrender or schema overcompensation. ST supports the patient to develop awareness of their modes and individual needs and helps patients to modify situations so that needs are better fulfilled. Behavioral techniques help with testing and transfer of problem solving skills. Cognitive techniques help to identify problematic situations, situational triggers and alternative ways to get needs met. Imagery rescripting and historical role play may in particular modify the internal context in problematic situations.

Dysfunctional schemas and modes are maintained, since attention is focused on information that confirms the dysfunctional schema or mode. This problem of attention that is inflexible and not directed to the situational context is addressed by ST using the attention shift that is associated with mode work through cognitive and experiential techniques. Chair dialogs for example require the patient to shift their attention to varying aspects of internal and interpersonal situations and facilitate the experience of the emotional changes associated with shifting attentional deployment.

One core assumption of ST is that information processing and decision making is influenced by early maladaptive schemas and that psychopathology is related to a dominance of dysfunctional modes to the detriment of the healthy adult mode. Consequently, when dealing with emotion regulation, appraisal is a core area for ST. Identification and re-appraisal of schemas through cognitive and experiential techniques are central for ST. ST assumes that mode awareness and cognitive flexibility that is developed during therapy allows the patient to switch from dysfunctional modes to the healthy adult mode and by this eliminate problematic appraisal processes. All experiential techniques promote change of appraisal especially through changing the meaning of emotions and early experiences that underlie schema.

ST assumes that psychopathology in this category is related to dysfunctional modes in particular dysfunctional child and parent modes and coping modes. The therapy relationship techniques, especially limited reparenting, aim to model and shape emotional responses in direct contact with the patient. Empathic confrontation is used to block problematic emotional reactions and promote healthy emotional reactions. Emotional exposure in experiential techniques is set up in small steps with shelter by the therapist and plays an important role of response modulation. In imagery rescripting traumatic experiences are processed and through the new script where the patient's needs get fulfilled the emotional response is directly altered. Behavioral techniques support the transfer of new responses into the everyday life of the patient.

Similarities and differences between DBT and ST

Both treatments share a CBT background and help patients to deal with emotional dysregulation. Both explain development of emotional dysregulation with invalidating aversive experiences in childhood in interplay with biological factors even if later in the therapy process the biographical aspects play a more distinct role in ST. In both methods the therapeutic relationship is marked by validation, acceptance and warmth for patients and both treatments address experiential avoidance. However, there are major differences in the terminology, explanatory models and techniques used in both methods. Table Table2 2 summarizes the main features, similarities and differences.

Main features, similarities, and differences of DBT and ST .


Explanatory model	Emotion dysregulation as central problem, Biosocial theory to explain emotion dysregulation, Focus on connection between emotion regulation and dysfunctional behaviors	Case conceptualization using the mode concept; frustration of basic needs in childhood leads to the development of maladaptive schemas and modes, problems in emotion regulation and interpersonal relationships follow. Emotion dysregulation is not seen as the central problem
Integration of childhood experiences	No explicit focus except for psychoeducation and validation of emotional dysregulation	Full integration: Maladaptive schemas, today's problematic behaviors, fear of emotions and relationships are associated with biographical experiences; psychoeducation regarding basic needs of children
Trained skills	Primary aim is skill acquisition in the area of emotion regulation. Skills are trained in the four DBT-modules emotion regulation, distress tolerance, mindfulness and interpersonal effectiveness	Skills for emotion regulation are not directly trained. Fostering meta-understanding of the current mode, skills for using the healthy adult mode, awareness of one's own needs and ways to meet them
General therapeutic strategies	Validation strategies, explicit techniques in DBT (V1–V6) Dialectical strategies (balance between acceptance and change, pro-contra lists) Commitment strategies Skills training Extensive use of cognitive and behavioral techniques, no special focus on experiential techniques	Special focus on therapy relationship: Limited reparenting and empathic confrontation also contain validation strategies with a special focus on validation of traumatic childhood experiences as well as validation of emotions and needs, but not as explicitly as in the DBT protocol Empathic confrontation contains validation (esp. of needs and relationship to childhood experiences) of current dysfunctional mode-driven behavior and confrontation with problematic consequences and the need for change Skills are not trained directly Special focus on experiential techniques (esp. imagery rescripting and chair-dialogs) and therapy relation techniques Mode-specific use of cognitive and behavioral techniques
Analysis of problem behavior	Chain analysis according to the DBT model for each type of problem behavior; hierarchy of problem behaviors; focus on obvious and threatening problem behaviors such as suicide attempts, self-harm and impulsive behavior, focus on emotions and triggers as well as on consequences of behavior, no focus on needs	Analysis with cognitive or experiential techniques according to the mode model, mostly for problematic situations which lead to emotional suffering and frustration of needs; no specific hierarchy, focus both on obvious problem behaviors, but also on “hidden” problem behaviors such as avoidance or surrender, focus on emotional needs and modes
Structure of the individual therapy session	Fixed structure with a “crisp beginning” involving a diary card, processing of topics according to the DBT goal hierarchy, focus on emotions	No fixed structure specification, flexible hierarchy depending on the dominating mode and frustrated needs
Group therapy and structure of the group session	Group therapy is essential ingredient of DBT. Structure: Homework and goal-related opening and closing round, teaching of skills from the DBT modules with a fixed manual; preferred use of cognitive and behavioral therapeutic techniques	Group therapy is not mandatory, but has shown to be helpful in BPD patients. Structure: Begin with safety imagery, topics are covered depending on the dominating mode; designed as “group family” to create corrective experiences; preferred use of experiential and limited reparenting techniques
Dealing with self-injury	Fixed procedures according to protocol based strategies, top priority in goal hierarchy; self-injuries are usually discussed with behavioral analysis before other issues are addressed	No fixed structure specification, and need not be treated with first priority (only if highly threatening); therapeutic intervention is directed at the trigger mode
Dealing with emotional problems	Comprehensive psychoeducation in the modules for emotion regulation; mindfulness and acceptance of emotions; teaching and training of specific emotion regulation skills, decision on whether one should act according to or opposite to the emotion; emotion processing with the help of emotion protocols (more cognitive approach)	Promotion of safe experiencing of emotions; explaining aversive emotions and problems in emotion regulation within the mode model, especially in the beginning extrinsic emotion regulation through therapist according to the mode-specific goals, focus on needs (e.g. “What do I need when I'm sad?”); focus on experiential interventions, mainly imagery rescripting and chair dialogs, aims at developing corrective experiences
Development of the working alliance	Therapist as a “coach” of the patient; therapeutic team at eye level with patient, dialectical formation of working alliance with warmth, empathy, acceptance and validation on the one side and pushing for change on the other	Therapist acts to a limited extent as a good parent with “limited reparenting,” i.e., meeting needs of patient that were frustrated in childhood; use of the working alliance for changing modes and to experience emotions and relationships in a safe way
Mindfulness training	Central role; non-judgmental attitude is promoted	Not included in ST
Skills training in distress tolerance	High priority; psychoeducation, development of a skills chain for stress regulation to prevent problem behaviors, reality accepting skills to ease emotional pain	Limited use, mainly for emergency situations in the beginning of therapy

Application

In this passage we will describe a case example of a woman with BPD and present the main strategies regulating emotions first from a DBT and then from a ST perspective.

Case example

Mona, a 23-year old, overweight woman, comes to psychotherapy and reports: “I just cannot deal with my emotions, my moods shift so rapidly, no one is able to follow. I do not even understand myself. I guess, that is why I just cannot have a normal relationship. With my last boyfriend I had so many fights. I always thought he would leave me for another woman. I just could not trust him. I had so many rage attacks and threw things at him. And then he really left me. He said, he just could not stand it anymore….Well, and since then, I just do not want anyone close to me anymore, besides my little sister. It just does not work with me.” Asked directly for her symptoms, she reports cutting with razorblades about once a week (“That happens often when I am in an emotional chaos.…I do not care about the scars. I am ugly anyway”), daily binge eating in the evening and about three times a week smoking cannabis (“This just helps to calm down, when I feel lonely, sad or guilty”), suicidal ideas (“I often think, my life is a mess anyway and only pain. If I was dead, this all would stop and I would have peace and silence. I would not feel guilty and ashamed anymore. Nobody would miss me. I tried it four times with pills, but it did not work.”), social withdrawal and inactivity (“Most of the day I lie in bed. I really do nothing. I am a loser”). She also suffers from disturbing intrusive memories and nightmares, where she relieves physical and emotional abuse from her father and stepmother, but also from the death of her older sister. The sister died 19-year-old of a heroin overdose, when Mona was 15 years. Mona feels guilty that she did not help her. With regard to her biography she reports further: “My father drank a lot of alcohol. He was very impulsive, violent-tempered, often shouted at us and beat us. We all had panic, when he came home. My real mother was caring and warm-hearted, but she was also afraid of him and could not protect us. She died from cancer, when I was seven. My stepmother was also addicted to alcohol. She was very moody, sometimes she was nice, but then, and you could never tell when and why, she got angry, insulted and beat us. My elder sister was the only one, who was there for me. But when she began to take drugs, she became very unreliable and I was totally lost. For my younger sister I was the ‘mom,’ since nobody was there. She is still living with my parents. I cannot forgive myself that I left her there.”

DBT perspective

Dbt case concept.

After a thorough assessment of Mona's presenting problems and her biography, the therapist educates Mona about BPD as a disorder of the emotion regulation system by using the biopsychosocial model: The precipitation factors were a history of invalidation, physical and emotional abuse by her parents in combination with a high emotional sensitivity. Mona has skills deficits in emotion regulation, in particular in dealing with grief and sadness (death of mother and sister, breaking up of partner), mistrust (expectations to be betrayed), anger (rage attacks), guilt (own behavior toward elder sister before her death, insufficient present support for her younger sister), and shame (own body, being mentally ill, abusing substances, disturbed eating behavior, inactivity). Both the externalizing behavior and internalizing problem behaviors (suicide attempts, self-injury, binge eating, drug use, social withdrawal, and inactivity) serve the avoidance or attenuation of aversive emotions and the associated physical symptoms of tension and pain. The patient also has skills deficits in the areas of self-management, mindfulness and metacognition, interpersonal behavior, and stress-tolerance. The therapist explains that DBT will focus on the acquisition of functional emotion regulation skills in the four modules, so that Mona can gain more control on her behaviors and in her life in general. The therapist uses a broad range of validation strategies to communicate acceptance and emphasize the understandability of Mona's behaviors and emotions. At the same time he motivates her to learn new strategies and pushes for change (dialectical balance of acceptance and change strategies).

The therapist sets up an intensive psychotherapy program with the following elements: individual therapy including telephone coaching, skills training group, case management by social worker, occupational therapy, and exercise therapy (Nordic walking).

Target hierarchy of problem behavior and goals for therapy

The therapist explains the DBT hierarchy of problem behaviors and Mona agrees with him on the following target hierarchy:

Suicidal behavior with intoxications
Severe self-injury with razor blades
Drug consumption
Binge eating
Social withdrawal,
Physical inactivity,

They agree on the following goals and agreements for therapy:

Regular attendance at therapy including all elements of the treatment program
Practice of emotion regulation skills, especially learning new ways to tolerate and deal with grief, guilt, and shame
Practice of distress-tolerance skills to prevent dysfunctional behavior
Practice mindfulness and interpersonal effectiveness skills
Preparation of a non-suicide decision
Self-injuries must be medically cared of and be examined by a behavioral analysis
Daily use of the DBT Diary Card to track problem behaviors as well as skill use, discussion at the beginning of each individual session
Abstinence of drugs
Practice of structured eating
Developing a daily movement program
Developing a perspective for education and work rehabilitation.

Understanding problem behavior and learning new skills

With behavioral analyses and chain analyses Mona learns to understand her own behavior, what it is caused by, why it is maintained and what consequences follow. Figure Figure1 1 shows a chain analysis of a serious self-injury (problem-behavior) after Mona saw her ex-boyfriend with another women (prompting event). Mona and the therapist work out emotional vulnerability factors, the emotions, thoughts, body reactions, and behaviors that follow the prompting event and end in the problematic behavior. Further they look at short-term and long-term consequences of the problem behavior.

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Chain analysis of a self-injury .

After conducting the chain analysis they look for new skillful behavior to replace the problem behavior: The therapist explains that, when Mona is under such high tension, that she can't think clearly, she first needs to use her distress tolerance skill chain. She found out, that the best skill in such situations is to tip her head into a bucket full of ice-cold water or to do exercise (e.g., 20 sit-ups). When she has calmed down she needs to have a look at her emotions, accepting and without judgment. The therapist's validation strategies are very important for Mona to stop devaluation of her thoughts, behaviors and emotions. In the skill training group she learns to identify, describe and observe her emotions mindfully and about primary and secondary emotions. She also learns that she has a choice to act with or opposite to an emotion. Thus, she and her therapist go in many situations through each emotion involved and work out, if it is a primary or secondary emotion, if Mona wants to act with or opposite to it and how this behavior would look like. In the situation from the example chain analysis Mona and the therapist work out that sadness is the primary emotion, while guilt, self-hatred and shame are secondary emotions and result from judgments of the situation. With help of the therapist Mona decides that it would be good to act opposite to guilt, self-hatred and shame. Her action-urge from sadness is to withdraw from social contacts and to go in her bed. She anticipates that in a future situation this would end with her using drugs or binge eating. Thus, she decides to act opposite to this urge as well and plans to contact her friend Sarah in a future situation and ask her, if she can come around. Her new behavior plan is to self-validate herself, stop to blame and hurt herself, and on the contrary call her friend Sarah. The new skills are practiced intensively over and over again in individual therapy, group therapy and as homework.

Although, she does not like the skill of “radical acceptance” in the beginning, Mona finds out that this skill is especially important for her in situations she cannot change, e.g., in dealing with the loss of her mother and sister.

ST perspective

Case conceptualization and psychoeducation with the mode model.

After investigating Mona's current problems and her biography, the therapist develops an individual case conceptualization according to the mode model in interaction with Mona (see Figure Figure2). 2 ). As usual in individual ST, Mona chose individual names for her modes: Mona's fears of being abandoned, feelings of mistrust, loneliness, sadness and anxiety are conceptualized in the vulnerable child mode (“little Mona”), her rage attacks and fights with the partner in the angry child mode (“angry Mona”). These modes developed since basic childhood needs have been frustrated and Mona has two times experienced a loss of her most important attachment figure. Self-devaluation, shame, guilt, and self-hatred refer to the punitive parent mode (“the punisher”), which developed probably due to experiences of aggression and insults from her father and stepmother. Early in life Mona developed “the shield,” her detached protector mode, as a survival strategy to protect herself from further emotional pain. In this mode she avoids getting close to others and distracts from intensive emotions or calms them down by self-injury, substance abuse, binge eating, social withdrawal, and sleeping. Her frequent mood-shifts and identity disturbances can be explained with rapid mode shifts. Mona's therapy attendance and her care for her sister are conceptualized in her healthy adult mode (“grown-up Mona”). The biographical context is brought into the case conceptualization with arrows (see Figure Figure1). 1 ). The therapist helps Mona to foster her mode awareness and educates her about the general and mode-specific goals of ST. All of Mona's problems and symptoms are conceptualized and treated in terms of the modes involved.

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Mona's mode model .

Bypassing the detached protector mode

First the therapist works on Mona's detached protector mode, since it is very strong and rigid and blocks access to the child and parent modes. He starts by reviewing the pro and cons of this mode (see Table Table3). 3 ). Later the therapist proposes a chair dialog to better understand the “Shield.” He asks Mona to take place in a chair for the “Shield” and to answer to all his questions out of the “Shield's” view. He says: “Hello Shield. You're extremely important for Mona. I'd like to better understand you. Can you tell me, why you are here today?” He asks for the development of the mode (e.g., “Do you know, when you first came in Mona's life? Why did Mona need you?”). He validates Mona: “Oh yes, Mona told me, that she was often punished very harshly by her father, if she showed any feeling and that it was very painful, when her mother died. Nobody was there to help her. It was good, that you came to protect her.” After that the therapist aims to work out disadvantages of the “Shield” mode “I have the impression that something happened to little Mona last week, and that she feels overwhelmed and lonely. I really want to help her. But at the moment I can't see what it is, because you stand very strong in front of her and I cannot reach her. And I think this is not, what little Mona needs right now. What do you think?” Mona begins to cry and switches to the vulnerable child mode. The therapist takes another chair for “Little Mona” and places it next to his chair. She tells that she saw her ex-boyfriend with another woman and that she feels so sad, lonely and worthless. The therapist soothes and comforts her. A popping up of a punitive parent mode (“It's your fault. You screwed it up. You are just not lovable. And then you cut yourself. Loser”) is fought by the symbolic action of placing the chair of the “Punisher” out of the therapy room.

Pros and Cons of Mona's Detached Protector Mode .


• Nobody can hurt me or abandon me • I have fewer conflicts with others • I do not have such awful feelings • I do not feel my needs and this is less painful, as I never get what I need anyway • I can control myself better e.g., do not have to cry • I feel safer • I have less awful memories • There is more silence	• I have no connection to others, I feel lonely and depressed • It feels empty and cold • It is boring • It still hurts and never stops • I do not have good contact with myself, I have no idea what I want in life. I have no control in my life • I have no idea about my emotions and needs, thus I can't fulfill my needs • I can't learn other strategies to deal with my problems and emotions

• Nobody can hurt me or abandon me
• I have fewer conflicts with others
• I do not have such awful feelings
• I do not feel my needs and this is less painful, as I never get what I need anyway
• I can control myself better e.g., do not have to cry
• I feel safer
• I have less awful memories
• There is more silence

• I have no connection to others, I feel lonely and depressed
• It feels empty and cold
• It is boring
• It still hurts and never stops
• I do not have good contact with myself, I have no idea what I want in life. I have no control in my life
• I have no idea about my emotions and needs, thus I can't fulfill my needs
• I can't learn other strategies to deal with my problems and emotions

Healing the child modes and fighting the punitive parent mode

In the next phase of treatment dysfunctional child and parent modes are addressed with a strong emphasis on experiential techniques and therapy relationship techniques. An example is an imagery rescripting exercise on the physical abuse of the father. In the image Mona had accidently broken a bowl, the father shouts at her and loses his belt to beat her. The therapist enters the image, since he does not want Mona to relive the whole trauma. He steps between little Mona and her father to protect her and talks harshly to the father: “Stop at once. You are not allowed to beat little Mona. Nobody is allowed to beat children. It is quite normal that a bowl breaks from time to time. Mona has not done anything wrong!” Since the father gets even more aggressive the therapist has four police men enter the image and arrest the father. Mona sees how he is brought to jail. Asked for her feelings and needs, little Mona tells the therapist that it is good, that her father cannot harm her anymore, but that she still feels lonely and that she misses her mom, who died 3 months ago. And that she does not know where to go. The therapist listens to little Mona and soothes her. Finally, he takes her and her sisters to their aunt Mary, who Mona likes very much. At the end of the image aunt Mary reads Mona and her sisters “Pooh, the Bear.”

Strengthing the healthy adult mode

More imagery rescripting exercises of other adversive childhood memories are performed and with the course of therapy Mona herself in the healthy adult mode can comfort and soothe little Mona in the rescripting part. Also Mona and the therapist perform several chair dialogs in which Mona understands her contradicting emotional processes. She understands why she can feel guilty (punitive parent), angry (angry child), and sad (vulnerable child) at the same time. She learns to recognize and reduce her punitive parent mode including her feeling of guilt, self-hatred, and shame and to experience and validate the needs of her vulnerable child mode. First her therapist models these tasks for her, but with the course of therapy Mona can take over the role of her healthy adult mode herself each time a little better.

Empirical evidence and future directions

Empirical evidence for dbt.

A systematic review and a Cochrane Review summarize the evidence for the efficacy of DBT in the treatment for patients with BPD, which has been shown in several randomized controlled trials (Kliem et al., 2010 ; Stoffers et al., 2012 ). The main effects are reduction of suicidality, self-injuring and impulsive behaviors, therapy dropouts and inpatient admissions. DBT has also shown effect in treating BPD with several comorbidities and other psychiatric conditions such as substance misuse (Linehan et al., 1999 , 2002 ; Dimeff and Linehan, 2008 ), eating disorder (Safer et al., 2001 ; Telch et al., 2001 ; Kröger et al., 2010 ), post-traumatic stress disorder (Steil et al., 2011 ; Harned et al., 2012 , 2014 ; Bohus et al., 2013 ), or depression (Lynch et al., 2007 ).

Research on mechanism of change has revealed that experiential avoidance impedes the reduction of depression in DBT-treatment of BPD and thus should be targeted (Berking et al., 2009 ). Experiential avoidance was decreased better in DBT compared to Community Treatment by Experts in a randomized controlled trial (Neacsiu et al., 2014a ). Neacsiu et al. ( 2010 ) showed that increasing use of DBT skills is a mechanism of change for suicidal behavior, depression, and anger control in the treatment of BPD. This study supports the skills deficit model for BPD. Also DBT as a transdiagnostic treatment of emotion dysregulation was superior to activities-based support group in decreasing emotion dysregulation, increasing skill use and decreasing anxiety, but not depression in patients with mood and anxiety disorders. Skill use mediated the changes (Neacsiu et al., 2014b ). Thus, behavioral skills are likely a potent mechanism of change for emotion dysregulation across disorders. However, evidence is preliminary and more research in other disorders than BPD is needed. Moreover, there are more than 60 DBT-skills and we do not know whether some skills are more important and useful than others in general, whether this varies over psychiatric disorders (e.g., patients with eating disorders needing other skills than patients with social phobia) or individual needs, whether some skills are more suitable for specific situations than others or how an individual determines to “use the right skill at the right time” and whether it executes that skill. Although, DBT has been evaluated intensively in efficacy and effectiveness studies, there is limited research on specific mechanisms of change in DBT. Clarifying the mechanisms of change could lead to a more focused and effective treatment and improvement on emotion dysregulation.

Empirical evidence for ST

Empirical studies indicate high effectiveness of ST in the treatment of BPD regarding decreases in all nine BPD symptoms, improvements in quality of live and high treatment retention rate (Jacob and Arntz, 2013 ; Sempértegui et al., 2013 ). But also for other PDs results are encouraging: In a Dutch randomized controlled trial including patients with non-BPD PD with a majority of cluster-C-PDs (avoidant, dependent, and obsessive compulsive) ST was superior to two comparison conditions (Bamelis et al., 2013 ). Promising results are also reported for depression (Malogiannis et al., 2014 ; Renner et al., 2016 ).

Research on mechanism of change is in its infancy in ST: With regard to the “limited reparenting” approach, scores of the therapeutic alliance both of patients and therapists were higher in ST when compared to transference-focused therapy in the treatment of BPD (Spinhoven et al., 2007 ). Low ratings at early treatment predicted dropout, whereas positive ratings of patients predicted clinical improvement. Thus, the therapeutic alliance in ST may serve to facilitate change processes underlying clinical improvement in patients with BPD. Other hints on mechanism of change come from the non-BPD-trial (Bamelis et al., 2013 ): Therapists in this trial were trained in two waves, with the second wave of therapists being trained mainly by practicing in role plays and the first wave therapist by lecture and video-watching. The second wave of therapists had significantly less drop-out and stronger effects than the first wave of therapists. Therapists of the second wave reported to feel better equipped for the treatment and to have integrated all techniques. It is hypothesized that these therapist felt more secure in experiential techniques and thus experiential techniques were used to a greater extent and that this might have led to a better outcome. Several studies showed that imagery rescripting as a stand-alone technique is successful in a broad range of psychiatric disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorder (Arntz et al., 2007 ; Grunert et al., 2007 ; Raabe et al., 2015 ), social phobia (Wild et al., 2008 ; Brewin et al., 2009 ; Wild and Clark, 2011 ; Nilsson et al., 2012 ; Frets et al., 2014 ), or depression (Wheatley et al., 2007 ; Brewin et al., 2009 ; Review in Arntz, 2012 ). Therapeutic techniques using imagery instead of verbalization probably have greater impact on emotions (Holmes et al., 2009 ). It might be assumed, that imagery rescripting is an important technique to facilitate change in ST, however empirical evidence to support this hypothesis lacks. Other techniques used in ST, such as chair dialogs or historical role play, call for further investigation. How all these techniques provided by ST and ST in general impact emotion dysregulation remains up to date unclear and needs further study. Also, it would be very interesting to compare the effects on emotion dysregulation of ST to DBT and other methods.

Future directions

From this comparison of DBT and ST with respect to emotion regulation several questions arise calling for further research. Stated in a simplified manner, DBT argues that emotion dysregulation skills deficits are the key to psychopathology, while ST assumes that early maladaptive schemas and modes underlie psychopathology and emotion dysregulation is a secondary consequence. If it is hypothesized that a treatment which addresses the key underlying factors of psychopathology has better treatment effects, the empirical question is to understand what underlies psychopathology. A question that is complicated to test, since assessment methods that specifically assess these underlying constructs with high validity need to be developed first.

Other important questions address the mechanisms of change for each method, but also differences between the two methods. Above for each method putative mechanism of change are discussed, e.g., skill use and targeting experiential avoidance for DBT or therapeutic alliance and use of experiential techniques in ST. However, the therapeutic alliance also plays an important role in DBT and ST is also targeting experiential avoidance, while skill use and use of experiential techniques are more specific to one of the methods. The question of specificity in these processes is very interesting, since basic processes that overlap in both methods and unique factors might be revealed and enable improvement of psychotherapy in general. Both treatments offer a variety of techniques and features. Currently it is impossible to say which ones are the most relevant for change. Component-analysis-studies are needed to reveal the most important features.

Treatment trials comparing DBT and ST are completely lacking, thus it remains an open question if one of the two methods is superior in efficacy and if the two methods have different efficacy for different groups of patients or different problems.

Author contributions

EF, US, and AA planed the concept and design of the paper. EF wrote the first draft of the paper. US, AA, DM, and OB provided critical revisions both from DBT and ST perspective. All the authors edited and revised the paper.

Conflict of interest statement

EF, US, OB and AA give trainings and/or published books on Dialectical Behavior Therapy and/or Emotion Regulation in Schema Therapy. The other author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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D stands for dialectical. Dialectics are based on the concept that everything is composed of opposites and that change occurs when there is a "dialogue" between opposing forces. Dialectics can be summarized as thesis, antithesis, and synthesis; therefore, they capture the synthesis between two opposites. In the case of DBT, the major synthesis for clients and therapists is Acceptance and Change. The process of dialectics makes three basic assumptions:

All things are interconnected.

Change is constant and inevitable.

Opposites can be integrated to form a closer approximation of the truth.

B stands for behavioral. DBT is a behavioral approach, which means that assessing and targeting behaviors is a priority in order to help clients solve their problems. The ultimate intention is to target problem behaviors, monitor them, and then systematically analyze the emotional/ cognitive/ behavioral drivers of the behavior. This involves initially targeting deliberate self-harm/ suicidal urges or other dysfunctional behaviors, and working with the patient to figure out what factors, both preceding, during, and after the behavior, make the behavior more likely to occur, . This leads to a joint solution analysis, such that new ways of dealing with overwhelming negative emotion can be generated, tested, and subsequently used in everyday living. An important component of this is learning new life skills, taught in a group program that runs alongside individual therapy.

DBT consists of four components, a fact which makes it stand out from others. A brief introduction to the four components can be found below:

1. Individual therapy : The aim of the weekly individual therapy sessions is to develop a supportive relationship between the therapist and the client. Individual therapy helps the client stay focused and motivated throughout treatment and sessions can be used to assist the client to individualize the use of skills and with reaching their personal goals. Also, individual therapy provides practical applications for an individual’s specific issues.

2. Skills group : The cornerstone of DBT, skills group, involves teaching a skill set that balances acceptance and change. The skills group covers the skills of mindfulness, emotional regulation, distress tolerance, and interpersonal effectiveness. Mindfulness skills focus on learning to observe, describe and participate in all internal and external experiences (including thoughts, emotions, and things we can perceive with our five senses) without judging these experiences as “good” or “bad.” Mindfulness skills are considered “core” skills that are necessary in order to implement the other DBT skills successfully. Emotion Regulation skills aim to manage and change emotions, to become more robust in the face of emotional triggers, and to enhance positive emotions through specific strategies. Distress Tolerance skills include practical strategies for tolerating and surviving distressing situations in the moment, without doing anything that could make the situation worse. It also focuses on radical acceptance for making peace with situations that have caused emotional suffering. Interpersonal Effectiveness skills teach how to build and maintain relationships and how to enhance self-care and respect within various types of relationships.

3. Telephone consultation : Crisis situations can happen at any time. In-the-moment coaching allows the therapist to give a client real-time skills training at his or her most vulnerable times. Phone consultation is typically brief and focused on DBT skills.

4. Consultation team meetings : This component indirectly benefits the client and is targeted to the therapist. These meetings are all about supporting the therapists in proving the treatment. It requires that DBT therapists participate in weekly consultation team meetings which serve to maintain and enhance each their motivation to provide DBT as effectively as possible.

thoughts & reflections on psychiatry by Steven P Reidbord MD

The word “dialectic” has a long history, from ancient Greek philosophers, through Hegel and Marx, and to the present day. Its meaning has changed over the centuries, and according to different thinkers. In psychotherapy, “dialectic” is almost wholly associated with dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), where the term identifies a particular type of treatment — even though most clients don’t know what the word means. In reality, dialectics as used in DBT is a feature of all schools of psychotherapy.

Broadly speaking, a dialectic is between two contradictory viewpoints, where a greater truth emerges from their interplay. Socratic dialog, in which philosophers mutually benefit by finding defects in each other’s arguments, is a classic example. In the early 19th century, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel described a universal dialectic, commonly summarized as “thesis, antithesis, synthesis.” His esoteric philosophy holds that every thesis, or proposition, contains elements of its own negation. Only by considering both the thesis and its contradiction (antithesis) can one synthesize a greater truth. This process never ends, as the new synthesis itself contains antithetical elements. The term veered in meaning with Marx’s dialectical materialism, and in yet other directions with more contemporary writers. But DBT uses the Hegelian sense, and that is our focus here.

Marsha Linehan faced a as she developed DBT in the late 1970s. Her behavioral strategies implicitly pathologized those she sought to help. Clients thought: “If I need to change, there must be something wrong with me.” To avoid re-traumatizing them, she turned to Zen Buddhism’s self-acceptance and focused on clients’ strengths. But this, in turn, downplayed their real need to change. Dr. Linehan and her colleagues eventually realized they would have to integrate change (thesis) and acceptance (antithesis) into a larger truth that incorporates both (synthesis).

This is the fundamental dialectic of DBT, although there are others. For example, the therapist is trustworthy and reliable, but he or she also makes mistakes. The client is doing his or her best but wants to do better. Although worded here using “but” for clarity, DBT teaches clients to use “and” instead (e.g., the therapist is reliable makes mistakes). In doing so, the therapeutic task is to embrace the truth of both propositions at once, not to choose one over the other.

An uneasy tension between acceptance and the need for change exists in all psychotherapy, not just DBT. Indeed, this tension underlies a question commonly posed to new clients: “What brings you in now?” Therapy begins only when emotional discomfort and the perceived need for change outweigh the inertia (i.e., acceptance), reluctance, and other factors that precluded it before. Then, once in therapy, change versus acceptance is often an explicit struggle. File for divorce or work on one’s marriage? Learn to be bolder or accept that one is shy by nature? Change physically through exercise or plastic surgery, or become more comfortable with the body one has?

When clients grapple with such questions, therapists of any school should refrain from choosing sides or giving advice. Except in extreme cases, we simply don’t know which option is best for the individual in our office.

However, it goes further than this. As Hegel wrote, a clash of thesis and antithesis may result in a new third way, a synthesis that incorporates, yet transcends, both sides of the argument. This “union of opposites” was first described by pre-Socratic philosophers (and by Taoists, as in the well-known Yin-Yang symbol of interdependence). The concept was later adopted by alchemists, who observed that compounding two dissimilar chemicals can result in a third unlike either parent (e.g., sodium, a highly reactive metal, plus chlorine, a poisonous gas, produces table salt). Carl Jung, who studied alchemy, weaved the union of opposites into various psychological . It forms the basis of his “transcendent function” that leads to psychological change; an accessible introduction to this concept can be found .

One need not be a Jungian to recognize creative, “third-way” processes in therapy. Instead of being caught on the horns of a dilemma, it often helps to take a step back and appreciate the validity of both positions: It is valid to seek autonomy relatedness. It is valid to be serious to play. And it is certainly valid to accept oneself while also striving to change. is our term in depth psychotherapy for achieving synthesis: a position that reconciles and transcends thesis and antithesis, makes sense emotionally, and works in one’s life. In this way, dialectic tension generates all creativity and psychological growth.

, | Category:

Very good write up. I am enlightened.

You are what is wrong with “psychiatry”. A brain function disorder should not remain in psychiatry until a biological cause can be nailed down. That is absurd!!! Someone who thinks that so-called “psychosis” and all of the catastrophic signs and symptoms can be the result of stress and lack of resilience – has a spectrum disorder. I suspect that there is an “anosognosia spectrum”. People on that spectrum are extremely receptive to believing that so-called schizophrenia and bipolar are psychogenic. Your brains are missing some capacities and there should be a means of weeding people like you out of the medical profession.

I normally don’t even publish invective like this, much less respond to it. But I have to admit, I’m mystified. Nowhere in this post did I even mention psychosis. Ironically, right now I’m debating on another list with some psychologists who believe schizophrenia is caused by childhood trauma and stress, and should be treated with psychotherapy alone. Maybe you should join me and argue with someone who disagrees with you!

You can use

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Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT)

"Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is a comprehensive multi-diagnostic, modularized behavioral intervention designed to treat individuals with severe mental disorders and out-of-control cognitive, emotional and behavioral patterns. It has been commonly viewed as a treatment for individuals meeting criteria for Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) with chronic and high-risk suicidality, substance dependence or other disorders. However, over the years, data has emerged demonstrating that DBT is also effective for a wide range of other disorders and problems, most of which are associated with difficulties regulating emotions and associated cognitive and behavioral patterns.

As the name implies, dialectical philosophy is a critical underpinning of DBT. Dialectics is a method of logic that identifies the contradictions (antithesis) in a person's position (thesis) and overcomes them by finding the synthesis. Additionally, in DBT a client cannot be understood in isolation from his or her environment and the transactions that occur. Rather, the therapist emphasizes the transaction between the person and their environment both in the development and maintenance of any disorders. It is also assumed that there are multiple causes as opposed to a single factor affecting the client. And, DBT uses a framework that balances the treatment strategies of acceptance and change - the central dialectical tension in DBT. Therapists work to enhance the capability (skills) of their client as well as to develop the motivation to change. Maintaining that balance between acceptance and change with clients is crucial for both keeping a client in treatment and ensuring they are making progress towards their goals of creating a life worth living.

DBT clearly articulates the functions of treatment that it addresses. They are:

to enhance an individual's capability by increasing skillful behavior,

to improve and maintain a client's motivation to change and be engaged with treatment,

to ensure generalization of change occurring through treatment,

to enhance the motivation of therapists to deliver effective treatment, and

to assist the individual in restructuring or changing his or her environment such that it supports and maintains progress and advancement towards goals."

"DBT-Lenihan Board of Certification"

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What is Dialectical Behavioral Therapy and Why Is DBT Effective?

What if I told you that DBT had me come full circle in my approach to practice as a therapist?

I first learned about Dialectical Behavioral Therapy , DBT, in my final year of graduate school in a transpersonal psychology program, where I wanted to approach psychology from the soulful, the unknown, the mysterious, and the beyond. DBT was one segment of our Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) course.

I appreciated and valued the science of psychology, but had a knee-jerk opposition to a strict focus on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to heal clients. Somehow CBT seemed too superficial, too measured, and too demanding as a healing practice. As a former lawyer, I was tired of the uber-rational, the rules, and the norms. I favored approaching therapy, as healing, and as more art than science.

I have since come to see that DBT integrates both art and science, the rational and the emotional, the body and the mind, the many and the One. It is a constant search for both/and, not either/or solutions to dilemmas, and how we view and respond to problems. So enamored in its approach was I that I became trained in its skills and foundations and have the privilege of offering DBT to the teens, adults, and couples that I work with.

What DBT Therapy Is All About

DBT is a mix of CBT, behaviorism, and mindful practices, recognizing the importance of both the rational and the emotional realms of life. DBT seeks a middle path, inviting us to use our “Wise Mind” as the north star when engaging with each other and the world.

DBT was developed by Marsha Linehan , Ph.D., an accomplished psychologist, researcher, and transformational leader. Stories of Linehan’s wit, skill, and tenacity abound. I invite you to pick up a copy of her Cognitive- Behavioral Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder (1993) to see how both she and DBT evolved in the field.

From the point of view of dialogue and relationship, Linehan described the dialectics in DBT as:

“… change by persuasion and by making use of the oppositions inherent in the therapeutic relationship, rather than by formal impersonal logic.”

Given that many among the population most served with DBT have been subject to severe trauma, DBT starts with whatever challenges the client presents with, and seeks to find new meanings within old frameworks, creating synthesis from thesis and antithesis.

In DBT, the therapist utilizes contrasting skills -- sometimes coaching, sometimes the devil’s advocate position, and sometimes radical acceptance. Clinicians understand trauma and that all of us are capable of extremes. Therapists accompany clients as they learn to manage uproars and soothe other difficult feelings that can emerge suddenly, or out of the blue.

DBT shows clients that change takes something. It’s rarely a cup of tea. Sometimes you have to do the exact opposite of what your strongest urge wants to do. DBT assumes the client is capable, not fragile, and fully capable of change; but also assumes that, until awareness and skills are practiced and internalized, failures can occur. DBT skills are taught to ensure clients don’t make a bad situation worse.

Clients discover that, even if they didn’t cause their intolerable circumstances, they have to live with them. They can try to solve their problems, look at them differently, radically accept them as they are, or stay miserable.

Emotional Regulation, Distress Tolerance, & Interpersonal Effectiveness

DBT works well for those who rampage or fly out of control, with words, deeds, substance use; and emotions; and for those who zoom from a 3 to 4 to a 9 or 10 on the overwhelm/outrage scale, in a split second, and stay there longer than is effective.

Clients seeking DBT may find themselves in constant challenges with others, their finances, their health, their safety, their stability, their careers, school, relationships, and resources. They may find they suffer so much loss, they inhibit grieving, moving from one relentless crisis to another.

While DBT validates that trauma , when untreated, may create chronic states of emotional dysregulation, and that such states may lead to impulsive, dangerous, and ineffective behaviors, it pulls for strength and resilience. It attempts to make lemonade out of lemons.

Biology and Behaviorism

DBT helps clients, partners, and parents shape new behaviors, extinguish ineffective ones, and discern what may be keeping troubling interactions in place.

DBT clients benefit from the treatment focus on educating clients and families about the biology of trauma and dysregulation, nature, function, and urges of emotions, and the vital need for validation and soothing in our lives.

DBT Skills comprise four modules: Mindfulness, Interpersonal Effectiveness, Emotional Regulation, and Distress Tolerance. Skills are often taught in groups of 3 or more participants. Each module is covered in approximately 6-8 weeks, with a course of DBT-adherent therapy typically running a course of six months or more.

Skills are trained in simple, elegant, and practical ways. They have catchy acronyms that come in handy when you need one in a snap (like when your emotional engine is running way too hot and you are heading into a meeting). Homework and group participation reinforce skills training, and inter-session coaching offers opportunities to keep clients on track.

I like DBT, because it is humane, practical, reinforcing, and effective. For the most seriously challenged clients, DBT research finds that DBT reduces episodes of suicidality and self-harm, hospitalization stays, and dropouts from therapy. Client testimonials further attest to its efficacy, and nothing beats seeing results on the ground.

Who is DBT Most Effective With?

DBT Treatment is not only for suicidal or deeply traumatized individuals and has multiple stages of treatment, ranging from the most life-threatening (stage 1) to what seems to me to be the most existential/spiritual (stage 4).

DBT Adherent treatment typically involves a comprehensive packet of services including personal therapy, DBT Skills Training, Phone Coaching, and DBT Consultation for the Therapist. DBT therapists may use the DBT Skills book and diary cards to reinforce principles and measure progress/regression. Diary cards also provide an efficient way for the therapist to gain a birds-eye view of the client’s life between sessions.

The interest in DBT seems to be growing. In fact, MSNBC’s Morning Joe recently aired an interview with two prominent DBT experts touting their new DBT for Dummies book. A link to the segment can be found here .

Hopefully, this whets your appetite to hear more about DBT. For questions as to how DBT might serve you or someone you love, please call Carla Barrow, LMFT at 954-391-5305 for a complimentary consultation in English or Spanish.

And keep your eyes out for future articles on how I use DBT to enhance Couples Therapy .

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Dialectical Behavior Therapy for Adolescents: Theory, Treatment Adaptations, and Empirical Outcomes

Published: 08 December 2012
Volume 16 , pages 59–80, ( 2013 )

Cite this article

Heather A. MacPherson 1 , 2 ,
Jennifer S. Cheavens 2 &
Mary A. Fristad 1 , 2

Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) was originally developed for chronically suicidal adults with borderline personality disorder (BPD) and emotion dysregulation. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) indicate DBT is associated with improvements in problem behaviors, including suicide ideation and behavior, non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI), attrition, and hospitalization. Positive outcomes with adults have prompted researchers to adapt DBT for adolescents. Given this interest in DBT for adolescents, it is important to review the theoretical rationale and the evidence base for this treatment and its adaptations. A solid theoretical foundation allows for adequate evaluation of content, structural, and developmental adaptations and provides a framework for understanding which symptoms or behaviors are expected to improve with treatment and why. We first summarize the adult DBT literature, including theory, treatment structure and content, and outcome research. Then, we review theoretical underpinnings, adaptations, and outcomes of DBT for adolescents. DBT has been adapted for adolescents with various psychiatric disorders (i.e., BPD, mood disorders, externalizing disorders, eating disorders, trichotillomania) and problem behaviors (i.e., suicide ideation and behavior, NSSI) across several settings (i.e., outpatient, day program, inpatient, residential, correctional facility). The rationale for using DBT with these adolescents rests in the common underlying dysfunction in emotion regulation among the aforementioned disorders and problem behaviors. Thus, the theoretical underpinnings of DBT suggest that this treatment is likely to be beneficial for adolescents with a broad array of emotion regulation difficulties, particularly underregulation of emotion resulting in behavioral excess. Results from open and quasi-experimental adolescent studies are promising; however, RCTs are sorely needed.

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What Works in the Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder

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MacPherson, H.A., Cheavens, J.S. & Fristad, M.A. Dialectical Behavior Therapy for Adolescents: Theory, Treatment Adaptations, and Empirical Outcomes. Clin Child Fam Psychol Rev 16 , 59–80 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10567-012-0126-7

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Hegel’s Dialectics

“Dialectics” is a term used to describe a method of philosophical argument that involves some sort of contradictory process between opposing sides. In what is perhaps the most classic version of “dialectics”, the ancient Greek philosopher, Plato (see entry on Plato ), for instance, presented his philosophical argument as a back-and-forth dialogue or debate, generally between the character of Socrates, on one side, and some person or group of people to whom Socrates was talking (his interlocutors), on the other. In the course of the dialogues, Socrates’ interlocutors propose definitions of philosophical concepts or express views that Socrates challenges or opposes. The back-and-forth debate between opposing sides produces a kind of linear progression or evolution in philosophical views or positions: as the dialogues go along, Socrates’ interlocutors change or refine their views in response to Socrates’ challenges and come to adopt more sophisticated views. The back-and-forth dialectic between Socrates and his interlocutors thus becomes Plato’s way of arguing against the earlier, less sophisticated views or positions and for the more sophisticated ones later.

“Hegel’s dialectics” refers to the particular dialectical method of argument employed by the 19th Century German philosopher, G.W.F. Hegel (see entry on Hegel ), which, like other “dialectical” methods, relies on a contradictory process between opposing sides. Whereas Plato’s “opposing sides” were people (Socrates and his interlocutors), however, what the “opposing sides” are in Hegel’s work depends on the subject matter he discusses. In his work on logic, for instance, the “opposing sides” are different definitions of logical concepts that are opposed to one another. In the Phenomenology of Spirit , which presents Hegel’s epistemology or philosophy of knowledge, the “opposing sides” are different definitions of consciousness and of the object that consciousness is aware of or claims to know. As in Plato’s dialogues, a contradictory process between “opposing sides” in Hegel’s dialectics leads to a linear evolution or development from less sophisticated definitions or views to more sophisticated ones later. The dialectical process thus constitutes Hegel’s method for arguing against the earlier, less sophisticated definitions or views and for the more sophisticated ones later. Hegel regarded this dialectical method or “speculative mode of cognition” (PR §10) as the hallmark of his philosophy and used the same method in the Phenomenology of Spirit [PhG], as well as in all of the mature works he published later—the entire Encyclopaedia of Philosophical Sciences (including, as its first part, the “Lesser Logic” or the Encyclopaedia Logic [EL]), the Science of Logic [SL], and the Philosophy of Right [PR].

Note that, although Hegel acknowledged that his dialectical method was part of a philosophical tradition stretching back to Plato, he criticized Plato’s version of dialectics. He argued that Plato’s dialectics deals only with limited philosophical claims and is unable to get beyond skepticism or nothingness (SL-M 55–6; SL-dG 34–5; PR, Remark to §31). According to the logic of a traditional reductio ad absurdum argument, if the premises of an argument lead to a contradiction, we must conclude that the premises are false—which leaves us with no premises or with nothing. We must then wait around for new premises to spring up arbitrarily from somewhere else, and then see whether those new premises put us back into nothingness or emptiness once again, if they, too, lead to a contradiction. Because Hegel believed that reason necessarily generates contradictions, as we will see, he thought new premises will indeed produce further contradictions. As he puts the argument, then,

the scepticism that ends up with the bare abstraction of nothingness or emptiness cannot get any further from there, but must wait to see whether something new comes along and what it is, in order to throw it too into the same empty abyss. (PhG-M §79)

Hegel argues that, because Plato’s dialectics cannot get beyond arbitrariness and skepticism, it generates only approximate truths, and falls short of being a genuine science (SL-M 55–6; SL-dG 34–5; PR, Remark to §31; cf. EL Remark to §81). The following sections examine Hegel’s dialectics as well as these issues in more detail.

1. Hegel’s description of his dialectical method

2. applying hegel’s dialectical method to his arguments, 3. why does hegel use dialectics, 4. is hegel’s dialectical method logical, 5. syntactic patterns and special terminology in hegel’s dialectics, english translations of key texts by hegel, english translations of other primary sources, secondary literature, other internet resources, related entries.

Hegel provides the most extensive, general account of his dialectical method in Part I of his Encyclopaedia of Philosophical Sciences , which is often called the Encyclopaedia Logic [EL]. The form or presentation of logic, he says, has three sides or moments (EL §79). These sides are not parts of logic, but, rather, moments of “every concept”, as well as “of everything true in general” (EL Remark to §79; we will see why Hegel thought dialectics is in everything in section 3 ). The first moment—the moment of the understanding—is the moment of fixity, in which concepts or forms have a seemingly stable definition or determination (EL §80).

The second moment—the “ dialectical ” (EL §§79, 81) or “ negatively rational ” (EL §79) moment—is the moment of instability. In this moment, a one-sidedness or restrictedness (EL Remark to §81) in the determination from the moment of understanding comes to the fore, and the determination that was fixed in the first moment passes into its opposite (EL §81). Hegel describes this process as a process of “self-sublation” (EL §81). The English verb “to sublate” translates Hegel’s technical use of the German verb aufheben , which is a crucial concept in his dialectical method. Hegel says that aufheben has a doubled meaning: it means both to cancel (or negate) and to preserve at the same time (PhG §113; SL-M 107; SL-dG 81–2; cf. EL the Addition to §95). The moment of understanding sublates itself because its own character or nature—its one-sidedness or restrictedness—destabilizes its definition and leads it to pass into its opposite. The dialectical moment thus involves a process of self -sublation, or a process in which the determination from the moment of understanding sublates itself , or both cancels and preserves itself , as it pushes on to or passes into its opposite.

The third moment—the “ speculative ” or “ positively rational ” (EL §§79, 82) moment—grasps the unity of the opposition between the first two determinations, or is the positive result of the dissolution or transition of those determinations (EL §82 and Remark to §82). Here, Hegel rejects the traditional, reductio ad absurdum argument, which says that when the premises of an argument lead to a contradiction, then the premises must be discarded altogether, leaving nothing. As Hegel suggests in the Phenomenology , such an argument

is just the skepticism which only ever sees pure nothingness in its result and abstracts from the fact that this nothingness is specifically the nothingness of that from which it results . (PhG-M §79)

Although the speculative moment negates the contradiction, it is a determinate or defined nothingness because it is the result of a specific process. There is something particular about the determination in the moment of understanding—a specific weakness, or some specific aspect that was ignored in its one-sidedness or restrictedness—that leads it to fall apart in the dialectical moment. The speculative moment has a definition, determination or content because it grows out of and unifies the particular character of those earlier determinations, or is “a unity of distinct determinations ” (EL Remark to §82). The speculative moment is thus “truly not empty, abstract nothing , but the negation of certain determinations ” (EL-GSH §82). When the result “is taken as the result of that from which it emerges”, Hegel says, then it is “in fact, the true result; in that case it is itself a determinate nothingness, one which has a content” (PhG-M §79). As he also puts it, “the result is conceived as it is in truth, namely, as a determinate negation [ bestimmte Negation]; a new form has thereby immediately arisen” (PhG-M §79). Or, as he says, “[b]ecause the result, the negation, is a determinate negation [bestimmte Negation ], it has a content ” (SL-dG 33; cf. SL-M 54). Hegel’s claim in both the Phenomenology and the Science of Logic that his philosophy relies on a process of “ determinate negation [ bestimmte Negation]” has sometimes led scholars to describe his dialectics as a method or doctrine of “determinate negation” (see entry on Hegel, section on Science of Logic ; cf. Rosen 1982: 30; Stewart 1996, 2000: 41–3; Winfield 1990: 56).

There are several features of this account that Hegel thinks raise his dialectical method above the arbitrariness of Plato’s dialectics to the level of a genuine science. First, because the determinations in the moment of understanding sublate themselves , Hegel’s dialectics does not require some new idea to show up arbitrarily. Instead, the movement to new determinations is driven by the nature of the earlier determinations and so “comes about on its own accord” (PhG-P §79). Indeed, for Hegel, the movement is driven by necessity (see, e.g., EL Remarks to §§12, 42, 81, 87, 88; PhG §79). The natures of the determinations themselves drive or force them to pass into their opposites. This sense of necessity —the idea that the method involves being forced from earlier moments to later ones—leads Hegel to regard his dialectics as a kind of logic . As he says in the Phenomenology , the method’s “proper exposition belongs to logic” (PhG-M §48). Necessity—the sense of being driven or forced to conclusions—is the hallmark of “logic” in Western philosophy.

Second, because the form or determination that arises is the result of the self-sublation of the determination from the moment of understanding, there is no need for some new idea to show up from the outside. Instead, the transition to the new determination or form is necessitated by earlier moments and hence grows out of the process itself. Unlike in Plato’s arbitrary dialectics, then—which must wait around until some other idea comes in from the outside—in Hegel’s dialectics “nothing extraneous is introduced”, as he says (SL-M 54; cf. SL-dG 33). His dialectics is driven by the nature, immanence or “inwardness” of its own content (SL-M 54; cf. SL-dG 33; cf. PR §31). As he puts it, dialectics is “the principle through which alone immanent coherence and necessity enter into the content of science” (EL-GSH Remark to §81).

Third, because later determinations “sublate” earlier determinations, the earlier determinations are not completely cancelled or negated. On the contrary, the earlier determinations are preserved in the sense that they remain in effect within the later determinations. When Being-for-itself, for instance, is introduced in the logic as the first concept of ideality or universality and is defined by embracing a set of “something-others”, Being-for-itself replaces the something-others as the new concept, but those something-others remain active within the definition of the concept of Being-for-itself. The something-others must continue to do the work of picking out individual somethings before the concept of Being-for-itself can have its own definition as the concept that gathers them up. Being-for-itself replaces the something-others, but it also preserves them, because its definition still requires them to do their work of picking out individual somethings (EL §§95–6).

The concept of “apple”, for example, as a Being-for-itself, would be defined by gathering up individual “somethings” that are the same as one another (as apples). Each individual apple can be what it is (as an apple) only in relation to an “other” that is the same “something” that it is (i.e., an apple). That is the one-sidedness or restrictedness that leads each “something” to pass into its “other” or opposite. The “somethings” are thus both “something-others”. Moreover, their defining processes lead to an endless process of passing back and forth into one another: one “something” can be what it is (as an apple) only in relation to another “something” that is the same as it is, which, in turn, can be what it is (an apple) only in relation to the other “something” that is the same as it is, and so on, back and forth, endlessly (cf. EL §95). The concept of “apple”, as a Being-for-itself, stops that endless, passing-over process by embracing or including the individual something-others (the apples) in its content. It grasps or captures their character or quality as apples . But the “something-others” must do their work of picking out and separating those individual items (the apples) before the concept of “apple”—as the Being-for-itself—can gather them up for its own definition. We can picture the concept of Being-for-itself like this:

an oval enclosing two circles, left and right; an arrow goes from the interior of each circle to the interior of the other. The oval has the statement 'Being-for-itself embraces the something-others in its content'. The circles have the statement 'the something-others'. The arrows have the statement 'the process of passing back-and-forth between the something-others'.

Later concepts thus replace, but also preserve, earlier concepts.

Fourth, later concepts both determine and also surpass the limits or finitude of earlier concepts. Earlier determinations sublate themselves —they pass into their others because of some weakness, one-sidedness or restrictedness in their own definitions. There are thus limitations in each of the determinations that lead them to pass into their opposites. As Hegel says, “that is what everything finite is: its own sublation” (EL-GSH Remark to §81). Later determinations define the finiteness of the earlier determinations. From the point of view of the concept of Being-for-itself, for instance, the concept of a “something-other” is limited or finite: although the something-others are supposed to be the same as one another, the character of their sameness (e.g., as apples) is captured only from above, by the higher-level, more universal concept of Being-for-itself. Being-for-itself reveals the limitations of the concept of a “something-other”. It also rises above those limitations, since it can do something that the concept of a something-other cannot do. Dialectics thus allows us to get beyond the finite to the universal. As Hegel puts it, “all genuine, nonexternal elevation above the finite is to be found in this principle [of dialectics]” (EL-GSH Remark to §81).

Fifth, because the determination in the speculative moment grasps the unity of the first two moments, Hegel’s dialectical method leads to concepts or forms that are increasingly comprehensive and universal. As Hegel puts it, the result of the dialectical process

is a new concept but one higher and richer than the preceding—richer because it negates or opposes the preceding and therefore contains it, and it contains even more than that, for it is the unity of itself and its opposite. (SL-dG 33; cf. SL-M 54)

Like Being-for-itself, later concepts are more universal because they unify or are built out of earlier determinations, and include those earlier determinations as part of their definitions. Indeed, many other concepts or determinations can also be depicted as literally surrounding earlier ones (cf. Maybee 2009: 73, 100, 112, 156, 193, 214, 221, 235, 458).

Finally, because the dialectical process leads to increasing comprehensiveness and universality, it ultimately produces a complete series, or drives “to completion” (SL-dG 33; cf. SL-M 54; PhG §79). Dialectics drives to the “Absolute”, to use Hegel’s term, which is the last, final, and completely all-encompassing or unconditioned concept or form in the relevant subject matter under discussion (logic, phenomenology, ethics/politics and so on). The “Absolute” concept or form is unconditioned because its definition or determination contains all the other concepts or forms that were developed earlier in the dialectical process for that subject matter. Moreover, because the process develops necessarily and comprehensively through each concept, form or determination, there are no determinations that are left out of the process. There are therefore no left-over concepts or forms—concepts or forms outside of the “Absolute”—that might “condition” or define it. The “Absolute” is thus unconditioned because it contains all of the conditions in its content, and is not conditioned by anything else outside of it. This Absolute is the highest concept or form of universality for that subject matter. It is the thought or concept of the whole conceptual system for the relevant subject matter. We can picture the Absolute Idea (EL §236), for instance—which is the “Absolute” for logic—as an oval that is filled up with and surrounds numerous, embedded rings of smaller ovals and circles, which represent all of the earlier and less universal determinations from the logical development (cf. Maybee 2009: 30, 600):

Five concentric ovals; the outermost one is labeled 'The Absolute Idea'.

Since the “Absolute” concepts for each subject matter lead into one another, when they are taken together, they constitute Hegel’s entire philosophical system, which, as Hegel says, “presents itself therefore as a circle of circles” (EL-GSH §15). We can picture the entire system like this (cf. Maybee 2009: 29):

A circle enclosing enclosing 10 ovals. One oval is labeled 'Phenomenology', another 'Logic', and two others 'Other philosophical subject matters'. The enclosing circle is labeled: the whole philosophical system as a 'circle of circles'

Together, Hegel believes, these characteristics make his dialectical method genuinely scientific. As he says, “the dialectical constitutes the moving soul of scientific progression” (EL-GSH Remark to §81). He acknowledges that a description of the method can be more or less complete and detailed, but because the method or progression is driven only by the subject matter itself, this dialectical method is the “only true method” (SL-M 54; SL-dG 33).

So far, we have seen how Hegel describes his dialectical method, but we have yet to see how we might read this method into the arguments he offers in his works. Scholars often use the first three stages of the logic as the “textbook example” (Forster 1993: 133) to illustrate how Hegel’s dialectical method should be applied to his arguments. The logic begins with the simple and immediate concept of pure Being, which is said to illustrate the moment of the understanding. We can think of Being here as a concept of pure presence. It is not mediated by any other concept—or is not defined in relation to any other concept—and so is undetermined or has no further determination (EL §86; SL-M 82; SL-dG 59). It asserts bare presence, but what that presence is like has no further determination. Because the thought of pure Being is undetermined and so is a pure abstraction, however, it is really no different from the assertion of pure negation or the absolutely negative (EL §87). It is therefore equally a Nothing (SL-M 82; SL-dG 59). Being’s lack of determination thus leads it to sublate itself and pass into the concept of Nothing (EL §87; SL-M 82; SL-dG 59), which illustrates the dialectical moment.

But if we focus for a moment on the definitions of Being and Nothing themselves, their definitions have the same content. Indeed, both are undetermined, so they have the same kind of undefined content. The only difference between them is “something merely meant ” (EL-GSH Remark to §87), namely, that Being is an undefined content, taken as or meant to be presence, while Nothing is an undefined content, taken as or meant to be absence. The third concept of the logic—which is used to illustrate the speculative moment—unifies the first two moments by capturing the positive result of—or the conclusion that we can draw from—the opposition between the first two moments. The concept of Becoming is the thought of an undefined content, taken as presence (Being) and then taken as absence (Nothing), or taken as absence (Nothing) and then taken as presence (Being). To Become is to go from Being to Nothing or from Nothing to Being, or is, as Hegel puts it, “the immediate vanishing of the one in the other” (SL-M 83; cf. SL-dG 60). The contradiction between Being and Nothing thus is not a reductio ad absurdum , or does not lead to the rejection of both concepts and hence to nothingness—as Hegel had said Plato’s dialectics does (SL-M 55–6; SL-dG 34–5)—but leads to a positive result, namely, to the introduction of a new concept—the synthesis—which unifies the two, earlier, opposed concepts.

We can also use the textbook Being-Nothing-Becoming example to illustrate Hegel’s concept of aufheben (to sublate), which, as we saw, means to cancel (or negate) and to preserve at the same time. Hegel says that the concept of Becoming sublates the concepts of Being and Nothing (SL-M 105; SL-dG 80). Becoming cancels or negates Being and Nothing because it is a new concept that replaces the earlier concepts; but it also preserves Being and Nothing because it relies on those earlier concepts for its own definition. Indeed, it is the first concrete concept in the logic. Unlike Being and Nothing, which had no definition or determination as concepts themselves and so were merely abstract (SL-M 82–3; SL-dG 59–60; cf. EL Addition to §88), Becoming is a “ determinate unity in which there is both Being and Nothing” (SL-M 105; cf. SL-dG 80). Becoming succeeds in having a definition or determination because it is defined by, or piggy-backs on, the concepts of Being and Nothing.

This “textbook” Being-Nothing-Becoming example is closely connected to the traditional idea that Hegel’s dialectics follows a thesis-antithesis-synthesis pattern, which, when applied to the logic, means that one concept is introduced as a “thesis” or positive concept, which then develops into a second concept that negates or is opposed to the first or is its “antithesis”, which in turn leads to a third concept, the “synthesis”, that unifies the first two (see, e.g., McTaggert 1964 [1910]: 3–4; Mure 1950: 302; Stace, 1955 [1924]: 90–3, 125–6; Kosek 1972: 243; E. Harris 1983: 93–7; Singer 1983: 77–79). Versions of this interpretation of Hegel’s dialectics continue to have currency (e.g., Forster 1993: 131; Stewart 2000: 39, 55; Fritzman 2014: 3–5). On this reading, Being is the positive moment or thesis, Nothing is the negative moment or antithesis, and Becoming is the moment of aufheben or synthesis—the concept that cancels and preserves, or unifies and combines, Being and Nothing.

We must be careful, however, not to apply this textbook example too dogmatically to the rest of Hegel’s logic or to his dialectical method more generally (for a classic criticism of the thesis-antithesis-synthesis reading of Hegel’s dialectics, see Mueller 1958). There are other places where this general pattern might describe some of the transitions from stage to stage, but there are many more places where the development does not seem to fit this pattern very well. One place where the pattern seems to hold, for instance, is where the Measure (EL §107)—as the combination of Quality and Quantity—transitions into the Measureless (EL §107), which is opposed to it, which then in turn transitions into Essence, which is the unity or combination of the two earlier sides (EL §111). This series of transitions could be said to follow the general pattern captured by the “textbook example”: Measure would be the moment of the understanding or thesis, the Measureless would be the dialectical moment or antithesis, and Essence would be the speculative moment or synthesis that unifies the two earlier moments. However, before the transition to Essence takes place, the Measureless itself is redefined as a Measure (EL §109)—undercutting a precise parallel with the textbook Being-Nothing-Becoming example, since the transition from Measure to Essence would not follow a Measure-Measureless-Essence pattern, but rather a Measure-(Measureless?)-Measure-Essence pattern.

Other sections of Hegel’s philosophy do not fit the triadic, textbook example of Being-Nothing-Becoming at all, as even interpreters who have supported the traditional reading of Hegel’s dialectics have noted. After using the Being-Nothing-Becoming example to argue that Hegel’s dialectical method consists of “triads” whose members “are called the thesis, antithesis, synthesis” (Stace 1955 [1924]: 93), W.T. Stace, for instance, goes on to warn us that Hegel does not succeed in applying this pattern throughout the philosophical system. It is hard to see, Stace says, how the middle term of some of Hegel’s triads are the opposites or antitheses of the first term, “and there are even ‘triads’ which contain four terms!” (Stace 1955 [1924]: 97). As a matter of fact, one section of Hegel’s logic—the section on Cognition—violates the thesis-antithesis-synthesis pattern because it has only two sub-divisions, rather than three. “The triad is incomplete”, Stace complains. “There is no third. Hegel here abandons the triadic method. Nor is any explanation of his having done so forthcoming” (Stace 1955 [1924]: 286; cf. McTaggart 1964 [1910]: 292).

Interpreters have offered various solutions to the complaint that Hegel’s dialectics sometimes seems to violate the triadic form. Some scholars apply the triadic form fairly loosely across several stages (e.g. Burbidge 1981: 43–5; Taylor 1975: 229–30). Others have applied Hegel’s triadic method to whole sections of his philosophy, rather than to individual stages. For G.R.G. Mure, for instance, the section on Cognition fits neatly into a triadic, thesis-antithesis-synthesis account of dialectics because the whole section is itself the antithesis of the previous section of Hegel’s logic, the section on Life (Mure 1950: 270). Mure argues that Hegel’s triadic form is easier to discern the more broadly we apply it. “The triadic form appears on many scales”, he says, “and the larger the scale we consider the more obvious it is” (Mure 1950: 302).

Scholars who interpret Hegel’s description of dialectics on a smaller scale—as an account of how to get from stage to stage—have also tried to explain why some sections seem to violate the triadic form. J.N. Findlay, for instance—who, like Stace, associates dialectics “with the triad , or with triplicity ”—argues that stages can fit into that form in “more than one sense” (Findlay 1962: 66). The first sense of triplicity echoes the textbook, Being-Nothing-Becoming example. In a second sense, however, Findlay says, the dialectical moment or “contradictory breakdown” is not itself a separate stage, or “does not count as one of the stages”, but is a transition between opposed, “but complementary”, abstract stages that “are developed more or less concurrently” (Findlay 1962: 66). This second sort of triplicity could involve any number of stages: it “could readily have been expanded into a quadruplicity, a quintuplicity and so forth” (Findlay 1962: 66). Still, like Stace, he goes on to complain that many of the transitions in Hegel’s philosophy do not seem to fit the triadic pattern very well. In some triads, the second term is “the direct and obvious contrary of the first”—as in the case of Being and Nothing. In other cases, however, the opposition is, as Findlay puts it, “of a much less extreme character” (Findlay 1962: 69). In some triads, the third term obviously mediates between the first two terms. In other cases, however, he says, the third term is just one possible mediator or unity among other possible ones; and, in yet other cases, “the reconciling functions of the third member are not at all obvious” (Findlay 1962: 70).

Let us look more closely at one place where the “textbook example” of Being-Nothing-Becoming does not seem to describe the dialectical development of Hegel’s logic very well. In a later stage of the logic, the concept of Purpose goes through several iterations, from Abstract Purpose (EL §204), to Finite or Immediate Purpose (EL §205), and then through several stages of a syllogism (EL §206) to Realized Purpose (EL §210). Abstract Purpose is the thought of any kind of purposiveness, where the purpose has not been further determined or defined. It includes not just the kinds of purposes that occur in consciousness, such as needs or drives, but also the “internal purposiveness” or teleological view proposed by the ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle (see entry on Aristotle ; EL Remark to §204), according to which things in the world have essences and aim to achieve (or have the purpose of living up to) their essences. Finite Purpose is the moment in which an Abstract Purpose begins to have a determination by fixing on some particular material or content through which it will be realized (EL §205). The Finite Purpose then goes through a process in which it, as the Universality, comes to realize itself as the Purpose over the particular material or content (and hence becomes Realized Purpose) by pushing out into Particularity, then into Singularity (the syllogism U-P-S), and ultimately into ‘out-thereness,’ or into individual objects out there in the world (EL §210; cf. Maybee 2009: 466–493).

Hegel’s description of the development of Purpose does not seem to fit the textbook Being-Nothing-Becoming example or the thesis-antithesis-synthesis model. According to the example and model, Abstract Purpose would be the moment of understanding or thesis, Finite Purpose would be the dialectical moment or antithesis, and Realized Purpose would be the speculative moment or synthesis. Although Finite Purpose has a different determination from Abstract Purpose (it refines the definition of Abstract Purpose), it is hard to see how it would qualify as strictly “opposed” to or as the “antithesis” of Abstract Purpose in the way that Nothing is opposed to or is the antithesis of Being.

There is an answer, however, to the criticism that many of the determinations are not “opposites” in a strict sense. The German term that is translated as “opposite” in Hegel’s description of the moments of dialectics (EL §§81, 82)— entgegensetzen —has three root words: setzen (“to posit or set”), gegen , (“against”), and the prefix ent -, which indicates that something has entered into a new state. The verb entgegensetzen can therefore literally be translated as “to set over against”. The “ engegengesetzte ” into which determinations pass, then, do not need to be the strict “opposites” of the first, but can be determinations that are merely “set against” or are different from the first ones. And the prefix ent -, which suggests that the first determinations are put into a new state, can be explained by Hegel’s claim that the finite determinations from the moment of understanding sublate (cancel but also preserve) themselves (EL §81): later determinations put earlier determinations into a new state by preserving them.

At the same time, there is a technical sense in which a later determination would still be the “opposite” of the earlier determination. Since the second determination is different from the first one, it is the logical negation of the first one, or is not -the-first-determination. If the first determination is “e”, for instance, because the new determination is different from that one, the new one is “not-e” (Kosek 1972: 240). Since Finite Purpose, for instance, has a definition or determination that is different from the definition that Abstract Purpose has, it is not -Abstract-Purpose, or is the negation or opposite of Abstract Purpose in that sense. There is therefore a technical, logical sense in which the second concept or form is the “opposite” or negation of—or is “not”—the first one—though, again, it need not be the “opposite” of the first one in a strict sense.

Other problems remain, however. Because the concept of Realized Purpose is defined through a syllogistic process, it is itself the product of several stages of development (at least four, by my count, if Realized Purpose counts as a separate determination), which would seem to violate a triadic model. Moreover, the concept of Realized Purpose does not, strictly speaking, seem to be the unity or combination of Abstract Purpose and Finite Purpose. Realized Purpose is the result of (and so unifies) the syllogistic process of Finite Purpose, through which Finite Purpose focuses on and is realized in a particular material or content. Realized Purpose thus seems to be a development of Finite Purpose, rather than a unity or combination of Abstract Purpose and Finite Purpose, in the way that Becoming can be said to be the unity or combination of Being and Nothing.

These sorts of considerations have led some scholars to interpret Hegel’s dialectics in a way that is implied by a more literal reading of his claim, in the Encyclopaedia Logic , that the three “sides” of the form of logic—namely, the moment of understanding, the dialectical moment, and the speculative moment—“are moments of each [or every; jedes ] logically-real , that is each [or every; jedes ] concept” (EL Remark to §79; this is an alternative translation). The quotation suggests that each concept goes through all three moments of the dialectical process—a suggestion reinforced by Hegel’s claim, in the Phenomenology , that the result of the process of determinate negation is that “a new form has thereby immediately arisen” (PhG-M §79). According to this interpretation, the three “sides” are not three different concepts or forms that are related to one another in a triad—as the textbook Being-Nothing-Becoming example suggests—but rather different momentary sides or “determinations” in the life, so to speak, of each concept or form as it transitions to the next one. The three moments thus involve only two concepts or forms: the one that comes first, and the one that comes next (examples of philosophers who interpret Hegel’s dialectics in this second way include Maybee 2009; Priest 1989: 402; Rosen 2014: 122, 132; and Winfield 1990: 56).

For the concept of Being, for example, its moment of understanding is its moment of stability, in which it is asserted to be pure presence. This determination is one-sided or restricted however, because, as we saw, it ignores another aspect of Being’s definition, namely, that Being has no content or determination, which is how Being is defined in its dialectical moment. Being thus sublates itself because the one-sidedness of its moment of understanding undermines that determination and leads to the definition it has in the dialectical moment. The speculative moment draws out the implications of these moments: it asserts that Being (as pure presence) implies nothing. It is also the “unity of the determinations in their comparison [ Entgegensetzung ]” (EL §82; alternative translation): since it captures a process from one to the other, it includes Being’s moment of understanding (as pure presence) and dialectical moment (as nothing or undetermined), but also compares those two determinations, or sets (- setzen ) them up against (- gegen ) each other. It even puts Being into a new state (as the prefix ent - suggests) because the next concept, Nothing, will sublate (cancel and preserve) Being.

The concept of Nothing also has all three moments. When it is asserted to be the speculative result of the concept of Being, it has its moment of understanding or stability: it is Nothing, defined as pure absence, as the absence of determination. But Nothing’s moment of understanding is also one-sided or restricted: like Being, Nothing is also an undefined content, which is its determination in its dialectical moment. Nothing thus sublates itself : since it is an undefined content , it is not pure absence after all, but has the same presence that Being did. It is present as an undefined content . Nothing thus sublates Being: it replaces (cancels) Being, but also preserves Being insofar as it has the same definition (as an undefined content) and presence that Being had. We can picture Being and Nothing like this (the circles have dashed outlines to indicate that, as concepts, they are each undefined; cf. Maybee 2009: 51):

two circles with dashed outlines, one labeled 'Being' and one 'Nothing'.

In its speculative moment, then, Nothing implies presence or Being, which is the “unity of the determinations in their comparison [ Entgegensetzung ]” (EL §82; alternative translation), since it both includes but—as a process from one to the other—also compares the two earlier determinations of Nothing, first, as pure absence and, second, as just as much presence.

The dialectical process is driven to the next concept or form—Becoming—not by a triadic, thesis-antithesis-synthesis pattern, but by the one-sidedness of Nothing—which leads Nothing to sublate itself—and by the implications of the process so far. Since Being and Nothing have each been exhaustively analyzed as separate concepts, and since they are the only concepts in play, there is only one way for the dialectical process to move forward: whatever concept comes next will have to take account of both Being and Nothing at the same time. Moreover, the process revealed that an undefined content taken to be presence (i.e., Being) implies Nothing (or absence), and that an undefined content taken to be absence (i.e., Nothing) implies presence (i.e., Being). The next concept, then, takes Being and Nothing together and draws out those implications—namely, that Being implies Nothing, and that Nothing implies Being. It is therefore Becoming, defined as two separate processes: one in which Being becomes Nothing, and one in which Nothing becomes Being. We can picture Becoming this way (cf. Maybee 2009: 53):

Same as the previous figure except arched arrows from the Nothing circle to the Being circle and vice versa. The arrows are labeled 'Becoming'.

In a similar way, a one-sidedness or restrictedness in the determination of Finite Purpose together with the implications of earlier stages leads to Realized Purpose. In its moment of understanding, Finite Purpose particularizes into (or presents) its content as “ something-presupposed ” or as a pre-given object (EL §205). I go to a restaurant for the purpose of having dinner, for instance, and order a salad. My purpose of having dinner particularizes as a pre-given object—the salad. But this object or particularity—e.g. the salad—is “inwardly reflected” (EL §205): it has its own content—developed in earlier stages—which the definition of Finite Purpose ignores. We can picture Finite Purpose this way:

4 concentric ovals with the innermost one enclosing an oval and a circle; an arrow points inward from the outermost oval and is labeled 'Presents into or particularizes as'. The outermost oval is labeled 'Finite Purpose (the universality; e.g. 'dinner')'. The next most oval is labeled 'A pre-given object (e.g., 'salad')'. The next oval and the circle and oval in the center are labeled 'The content of the object, developed in earlier stages, that Finite Purpose is ignoring'.

In the dialectical moment, Finite Purpose is determined by the previously ignored content, or by that other content. The one-sidedness of Finite Purpose requires the dialectical process to continue through a series of syllogisms that determines Finite Purpose in relation to the ignored content. The first syllogism links the Finite Purpose to the first layer of content in the object: the Purpose or universality (e.g., dinner) goes through the particularity (e.g., the salad) to its content, the singularity (e.g., lettuce as a type of thing)—the syllogism U-P-S (EL §206). But the particularity (e.g., the salad) is itself a universality or purpose, “which at the same time is a syllogism within itself [ in sich ]” (EL Remark to §208; alternative translation), in relation to its own content. The salad is a universality/purpose that particularizes as lettuce (as a type of thing) and has its singularity in this lettuce here—a second syllogism, U-P-S. Thus, the first singularity (e.g., “lettuce” as a type of thing)—which, in this second syllogism, is the particularity or P —“ judges ” (EL §207) or asserts that “ U is S ”: it says that “lettuce” as a universality ( U ) or type of thing is a singularity ( S ), or is “this lettuce here”, for instance. This new singularity (e.g. “this lettuce here”) is itself a combination of subjectivity and objectivity (EL §207): it is an Inner or identifying concept (“lettuce”) that is in a mutually-defining relationship (the circular arrow) with an Outer or out-thereness (“this here”) as its content. In the speculative moment, Finite Purpose is determined by the whole process of development from the moment of understanding—when it is defined by particularizing into a pre-given object with a content that it ignores—to its dialectical moment—when it is also defined by the previously ignored content. We can picture the speculative moment of Finite Purpose this way:

4 concentric ovals with the innermost one enclosing an oval and a circle; arrows point inward from the outermost 3 ovals to the next one in. The outermost oval is labeled 'Finite Purpose (the universality; e.g. 'dinner')'. The nextmost oval is labeled both 'The Particularity or object (e.g., 'salad')' and 'The object (e.g., 'salad') is also a Purpose or universality with its own syllogism'. The next oval is labeled both 'The Singularity (e.g., 'lettuce' as a type)' and 'The Particularity (e.g., 'lettuce' as type)'. And the 4th oval is labeled both 'Inner' and 'The Singularity (e.g., 'this lettuce is here')'. The circle in the middle is labeled 'Outer' and the oval in the middle 'Mutually-defining relationship'. The 3 interior ovals (not including the innermost) are also labeled 'The second syllogism U-P-S'. The 3 outer ovals are also labeled 'The first syllogism U-P-S'.

Finite Purpose’s speculative moment leads to Realized Purpose. As soon as Finite Purpose presents all the content, there is a return process (a series of return arrows) that establishes each layer and redefines Finite Purpose as Realized Purpose. The presence of “this lettuce here” establishes the actuality of “lettuce” as a type of thing (an Actuality is a concept that captures a mutually-defining relationship between an Inner and an Outer [EL §142]), which establishes the “salad”, which establishes “dinner” as the Realized Purpose over the whole process. We can picture Realized Purpose this way:

4 concentric ovals with the innermost one enclosing an oval and a circle; arrows point inward from the outermost 3 ovals to the next one in and arrows also point in the reverse direction. The outermost oval is labeled 'Realized Purpose: the Purpose (e.g., 'dinner') is established as the Purpose or universality over the whole content'. The outward pointing arrows are labeled 'The return process established the Purpose (e.g., 'dinner') as the Purpose or universality over the whole content'. The nextmost oval is labeled 'The object and second Purpose (e.g., 'salad')'. The one next in is labeled 'The Singularity/Particularity (e.g., 'lettuce' as a type)'. The 3rd inward oval is labeled 'The second Singularity (e.g., 'this lettuce is here')'.

If Hegel’s account of dialectics is a general description of the life of each concept or form, then any section can include as many or as few stages as the development requires. Instead of trying to squeeze the stages into a triadic form (cf. Solomon 1983: 22)—a technique Hegel himself rejects (PhG §50; cf. section 3 )—we can see the process as driven by each determination on its own account: what it succeeds in grasping (which allows it to be stable, for a moment of understanding), what it fails to grasp or capture (in its dialectical moment), and how it leads (in its speculative moment) to a new concept or form that tries to correct for the one-sidedness of the moment of understanding. This sort of process might reveal a kind of argument that, as Hegel had promised, might produce a comprehensive and exhaustive exploration of every concept, form or determination in each subject matter, as well as raise dialectics above a haphazard analysis of various philosophical views to the level of a genuine science.

We can begin to see why Hegel was motivated to use a dialectical method by examining the project he set for himself, particularly in relation to the work of David Hume and Immanuel Kant (see entries on Hume and Kant ). Hume had argued against what we can think of as the naïve view of how we come to have scientific knowledge. According to the naïve view, we gain knowledge of the world by using our senses to pull the world into our heads, so to speak. Although we may have to use careful observations and do experiments, our knowledge of the world is basically a mirror or copy of what the world is like. Hume argued, however, that naïve science’s claim that our knowledge corresponds to or copies what the world is like does not work. Take the scientific concept of cause, for instance. According to that concept of cause, to say that one event causes another is to say that there is a necessary connection between the first event (the cause) and the second event (the effect), such that, when the first event happens, the second event must also happen. According to naïve science, when we claim (or know) that some event causes some other event, our claim mirrors or copies what the world is like. It follows that the necessary, causal connection between the two events must itself be out there in the world. However, Hume argued, we never observe any such necessary causal connection in our experience of the world, nor can we infer that one exists based on our reasoning (see Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature , Book I, Part III, Section II; Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding , Section VII, Part I). There is nothing in the world itself that our idea of cause mirrors or copies.

Kant thought Hume’s argument led to an unacceptable, skeptical conclusion, and he rejected Hume’s own solution to the skepticism (see Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason , B5, B19–20). Hume suggested that our idea of causal necessity is grounded merely in custom or habit, since it is generated by our own imaginations after repeated observations of one sort of event following another sort of event (see Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature , Book I, Section VI; Hegel also rejected Hume’s solution, see EL §39). For Kant, science and knowledge should be grounded in reason, and he proposed a solution that aimed to reestablish the connection between reason and knowledge that was broken by Hume’s skeptical argument. Kant’s solution involved proposing a Copernican revolution in philosophy ( Critique of Pure Reason , Bxvi). Nicholas Copernicus was the Polish astronomer who said that the earth revolves around the sun, rather than the other way around. Kant proposed a similar solution to Hume’s skepticism. Naïve science assumes that our knowledge revolves around what the world is like, but, Hume’s criticism argued, this view entails that we cannot then have knowledge of scientific causes through reason. We can reestablish a connection between reason and knowledge, however, Kant suggested, if we say—not that knowledge revolves around what the world is like—but that knowledge revolves around what we are like . For the purposes of our knowledge, Kant said, we do not revolve around the world—the world revolves around us. Because we are rational creatures, we share a cognitive structure with one another that regularizes our experiences of the world. This intersubjectively shared structure of rationality—and not the world itself—grounds our knowledge.

However, Kant’s solution to Hume’s skepticism led to a skeptical conclusion of its own that Hegel rejected. While the intersubjectively shared structure of our reason might allow us to have knowledge of the world from our perspective, so to speak, we cannot get outside of our mental, rational structures to see what the world might be like in itself. As Kant had to admit, according to his theory, there is still a world in itself or “Thing-in-itself” ( Ding an sich ) about which we can know nothing (see, e.g., Critique of Pure Reason , Bxxv–xxvi). Hegel rejected Kant’s skeptical conclusion that we can know nothing about the world- or Thing-in-itself, and he intended his own philosophy to be a response to this view (see, e.g., EL §44 and the Remark to §44).

How did Hegel respond to Kant’s skepticism—especially since Hegel accepted Kant’s Copernican revolution, or Kant’s claim that we have knowledge of the world because of what we are like, because of our reason? How, for Hegel, can we get out of our heads to see the world as it is in itself? Hegel’s answer is very close to the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle’s response to Plato. Plato argued that we have knowledge of the world only through the Forms. The Forms are perfectly universal, rational concepts or ideas. Because the world is imperfect, however, Plato exiled the Forms to their own realm. Although things in the world get their definitions by participating in the Forms, those things are, at best, imperfect copies of the universal Forms (see, e.g., Parmenides 131–135a). The Forms are therefore not in this world, but in a separate realm of their own. Aristotle argued, however, that the world is knowable not because things in the world are imperfect copies of the Forms, but because the Forms are in things themselves as the defining essences of those things (see, e.g., De Anima [ On the Soul ], Book I, Chapter 1 [403a26–403b18]; Metaphysics , Book VII, Chapter 6 [1031b6–1032a5] and Chapter 8 [1033b20–1034a8]).

In a similar way, Hegel’s answer to Kant is that we can get out of our heads to see what the world is like in itself—and hence can have knowledge of the world in itself—because the very same rationality or reason that is in our heads is in the world itself . As Hegel apparently put it in a lecture, the opposition or antithesis between the subjective and objective disappears by saying, as the Ancients did,

that nous governs the world, or by our own saying that there is reason in the world, by which we mean that reason is the soul of the world, inhabits it, and is immanent in it, as it own, innermost nature, its universal. (EL-GSH Addition 1 to §24)

Hegel used an example familiar from Aristotle’s work to illustrate this view:

“to be an animal”, the kind considered as the universal, pertains to the determinate animal and constitutes its determinate essentiality. If we were to deprive a dog of its animality we could not say what it is. (EL-GSH Addition 1 to §24; cf. SL-dG 16–17, SL-M 36-37)

Kant’s mistake, then, was that he regarded reason or rationality as only in our heads, Hegel suggests (EL §§43–44), rather than in both us and the world itself (see also below in this section and section 4 ). We can use our reason to have knowledge of the world because the very same reason that is in us, is in the world itself as it own defining principle. The rationality or reason in the world makes reality understandable, and that is why we can have knowledge of, or can understand, reality with our rationality. Dialectics—which is Hegel’s account of reason—characterizes not only logic, but also “everything true in general” (EL Remark to §79).

But why does Hegel come to define reason in terms of dialectics, and hence adopt a dialectical method? We can begin to see what drove Hegel to adopt a dialectical method by returning once again to Plato’s philosophy. Plato argued that we can have knowledge of the world only by grasping the Forms, which are perfectly universal, rational concepts or ideas. Because things in the world are so imperfect, however, Plato concluded that the Forms are not in this world, but in a realm of their own. After all, if a human being were perfectly beautiful, for instance, then he or she would never become not-beautiful. But human beings change, get old, and die, and so can be, at best, imperfect copies of the Form of beauty—though they get whatever beauty they have by participating in that Form. Moreover, for Plato, things in the world are such imperfect copies that we cannot gain knowledge of the Forms by studying things in the world, but only through reason, that is, only by using our rationality to access the separate realm of the Forms (as Plato argued in the well-known parable of the cave; Republic , Book 7, 514–516b).

Notice, however, that Plato’s conclusion that the Forms cannot be in this world and so must be exiled to a separate realm rests on two claims. First, it rests on the claim that the world is an imperfect and messy place—a claim that is hard to deny. But it also rests on the assumption that the Forms—the universal, rational concepts or ideas of reason itself—are static and fixed, and so cannot grasp the messiness within the imperfect world. Hegel is able to link reason back to our messy world by changing the definition of reason. Instead of saying that reason consists of static universals, concepts or ideas, Hegel says that the universal concepts or forms are themselves messy . Against Plato, Hegel’s dialectical method allows him to argue that universal concepts can “overgrasp” (from the German verb übergreifen ) the messy, dialectical nature of the world because they, themselves, are dialectical . Moreover, because later concepts build on or sublate (cancel, but also preserve) earlier concepts, the later, more universal concepts grasp the dialectical processes of earlier concepts. As a result, higher-level concepts can grasp not only the dialectical nature of earlier concepts or forms, but also the dialectical processes that make the world itself a messy place. The highest definition of the concept of beauty, for instance, would not take beauty to be fixed and static, but would include within it the dialectical nature or finiteness of beauty, the idea that beauty becomes, on its own account, not-beauty. This dialectical understanding of the concept of beauty can then overgrasp the dialectical and finite nature of beauty in the world, and hence the truth that, in the world, beautiful things themselves become not-beautiful, or might be beautiful in one respect and not another. Similarly, the highest determination of the concept of “tree” will include within its definition the dialectical process of development and change from seed to sapling to tree. As Hegel says, dialectics is “the principle of all natural and spiritual life” (SL-M 56; SL-dG 35), or “the moving soul of scientific progression” (EL §81). Dialectics is what drives the development of both reason as well as of things in the world. A dialectical reason can overgrasp a dialectical world.

Two further journeys into the history of philosophy will help to show why Hegel chose dialectics as his method of argument. As we saw, Hegel argues against Kant’s skepticism by suggesting that reason is not only in our heads, but in the world itself. To show that reason is in the world itself, however, Hegel has to show that reason can be what it is without us human beings to help it. He has to show that reason can develop on its own, and does not need us to do the developing for it (at least for those things in the world that are not human-created). As we saw (cf. section 1 ), central to Hegel’s dialectics is the idea that concepts or forms develop on their own because they “self-sublate”, or sublate (cancel and preserve) themselves , and so pass into subsequent concepts or forms on their own accounts, because of their own, dialectical natures. Thus reason, as it were, drives itself, and hence does not need our heads to develop it. Hegel needs an account of self-driving reason to get beyond Kant’s skepticism.

Ironically, Hegel derives the basic outlines of his account of self-driving reason from Kant. Kant divided human rationality into two faculties: the faculty of the understanding and the faculty of reason. The understanding uses concepts to organize and regularize our experiences of the world. Reason’s job is to coordinate the concepts and categories of the understanding by developing a completely unified, conceptual system, and it does this work, Kant thought, on its own, independently of how those concepts might apply to the world. Reason coordinates the concepts of the understanding by following out necessary chains of syllogisms to produce concepts that achieve higher and higher levels of conceptual unity. Indeed, this process will lead reason to produce its own transcendental ideas, or concepts that go beyond the world of experience. Kant calls this necessary, concept-creating reason “speculative” reason (cf. Critique of Pure Reason , Bxx–xxi, A327/B384). Reason creates its own concepts or ideas—it “speculates”—by generating new and increasingly comprehensive concepts of its own, independently of the understanding. In the end, Kant thought, reason will follow out such chains of syllogisms until it develops completely comprehensive or unconditioned universals—universals that contain all of the conditions or all of the less-comprehensive concepts that help to define them. As we saw (cf. section 1 ), Hegel’s dialectics adopts Kant’s notion of a self-driving and concept-creating “speculative” reason, as well as Kant’s idea that reason aims toward unconditioned universality or absolute concepts.

Ultimately, Kant thought, reasons’ necessary, self-driving activity will lead it to produce contradictions—what he called the “antinomies”, which consist of a thesis and antithesis. Once reason has generated the unconditioned concept of the whole world, for instance, Kant argued, it can look at the world in two, contradictory ways. In the first antinomy, reason can see the world (1) as the whole totality or as the unconditioned, or (2) as the series of syllogisms that led up to that totality. If reason sees the world as the unconditioned or as a complete whole that is not conditioned by anything else, then it will see the world as having a beginning and end in terms of space and time, and so will conclude (the thesis) that the world has a beginning and end or limit. But if reason sees the world as the series, in which each member of the series is conditioned by the previous member, then the world will appear to be without a beginning and infinite, and reason will conclude (the antithesis) that the world does not have a limit in terms of space and time (cf. Critique of Pure Reason , A417–18/B445–6). Reason thus leads to a contradiction: it holds both that the world has a limit and that it does not have a limit at the same time. Because reason’s own process of self-development will lead it to develop contradictions or to be dialectical in this way, Kant thought that reason must be kept in check by the understanding. Any conclusions that reason draws that do not fall within the purview of the understanding cannot be applied to the world of experience, Kant said, and so cannot be considered genuine knowledge ( Critique of Pure Reason , A506/B534).

Hegel adopts Kant’s dialectical conception of reason, but he liberates reason for knowledge from the tyranny of the understanding. Kant was right that reason speculatively generates concepts on its own, and that this speculative process is driven by necessity and leads to concepts of increasing universality or comprehensiveness. Kant was even right to suggest—as he had shown in the discussion of the antinomies—that reason is dialectical, or necessarily produces contradictions on its own. Again, Kant’s mistake was that he fell short of saying that these contradictions are in the world itself. He failed to apply the insights of his discussion of the antinomies to “ things in themselves ” (SL-M 56; SL-dG 35; see also section 4 ). Indeed, Kant’s own argument proves that the dialectical nature of reason can be applied to things themselves. The fact that reason develops those contradictions on its own, without our heads to help it , shows that those contradictions are not just in our heads, but are objective, or in the world itself. Kant, however, failed to draw this conclusion, and continued to regard reason’s conclusions as illusions. Still, Kant’s philosophy vindicated the general idea that the contradictions he took to be illusions are both objective—or out there in the world—and necessary. As Hegel puts it, Kant vindicates the general idea of “the objectivity of the illusion and the necessity of the contradiction which belongs to the nature of thought determinations” (SL-M 56; cf. SL-dG 35), or to the nature of concepts themselves.

The work of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (see entry on Fichte ) showed Hegel how dialectics can get beyond Kant—beyond the contradictions that, as Kant had shown, reason (necessarily) develops on its own, beyond the reductio ad absurdum argument (which, as we saw above, holds that a contradiction leads to nothingness), and beyond Kant’s skepticism, or Kant’s claim that reason’s contradictions must be reined in by the understanding and cannot count as knowledge. Fichte argued that the task of discovering the foundation of all human knowledge leads to a contradiction or opposition between the self and the not-self (it is not important, for our purposes, why Fichte held this view). The kind of reasoning that leads to this contradiction, Fichte said, is the analytical or antithetical method of reasoning, which involves drawing out an opposition between elements (in this case, the self and not-self) that are being compared to, or equated with, one another. While the traditional reductio ad absurdum argument would lead us to reject both sides of the contradiction and start from scratch, Fichte argued that the contradiction or opposition between the self and not-self can be resolved. In particular, the contradiction is resolved by positing a third concept—the concept of divisibility—which unites the two sides ( The Science of Knowledge , I: 110–11; Fichte 1982: 108–110). The concept of divisibility is produced by a synthetic procedure of reasoning, which involves “discovering in opposites the respect in which they are alike ” ( The Science of Knowledge , I: 112–13; Fichte 1982: 111). Indeed, Fichte argued, not only is the move to resolve contradictions with synthetic concepts or judgments possible, it is necessary . As he says of the move from the contradiction between self and not-self to the synthetic concept of divisibility,

there can be no further question as to the possibility of this [synthesis], nor can any ground for it be given; it is absolutely possible, and we are entitled to it without further grounds of any kind. ( The Science of Knowledge , I: 114; Fichte 1982: 112)

Since the analytical method leads to oppositions or contradictions, he argued, if we use only analytic judgments, “we not only do not get very far, as Kant says; we do not get anywhere at all” ( The Science of Knowledge , I: 113; Fichte 1982: 112). Without the synthetic concepts or judgments, we are left, as the classic reductio ad absurdum argument suggests, with nothing at all. The synthetic concepts or judgments are thus necessary to get beyond contradiction without leaving us with nothing.

Fichte’s account of the synthetic method provides Hegel with the key to moving beyond Kant. Fichte suggested that a synthetic concept that unifies the results of a dialectically-generated contradiction does not completely cancel the contradictory sides, but only limits them. As he said, in general, “[t]o limit something is to abolish its reality, not wholly , but in part only” ( The Science of Knowledge , I: 108; Fichte 1982: 108). Instead of concluding, as a reductio ad absurdum requires, that the two sides of a contradiction must be dismissed altogether, the synthetic concept or judgment retroactively justifies the opposing sides by demonstrating their limit, by showing which part of reality they attach to and which they do not ( The Science of Knowledge , I: 108–10; Fichte 1982: 108–9), or by determining in what respect and to what degree they are each true. For Hegel, as we saw (cf. section 1 ), later concepts and forms sublate—both cancel and preserve —earlier concepts and forms in the sense that they include earlier concepts and forms in their own definitions. From the point of view of the later concepts or forms, the earlier ones still have some validity, that is, they have a limited validity or truth defined by the higher-level concept or form.

Dialectically generated contradictions are therefore not a defect to be reigned in by the understanding, as Kant had said, but invitations for reason to “speculate”, that is, for reason to generate precisely the sort of increasingly comprehensive and universal concepts and forms that Kant had said reason aims to develop. Ultimately, Hegel thought, as we saw (cf. section 1 ), the dialectical process leads to a completely unconditioned concept or form for each subject matter—the Absolute Idea (logic), Absolute Spirit (phenomenology), Absolute Idea of right and law ( Philosophy of Right ), and so on—which, taken together, form the “circle of circles” (EL §15) that constitutes the whole philosophical system or “Idea” (EL §15) that both overgrasps the world and makes it understandable (for us).

Note that, while Hegel was clearly influenced by Fichte’s work, he never adopted Fichte’s triadic “thesis—antithesis—synthesis” language in his descriptions of his own philosophy (Mueller 1958: 411–2; Solomon 1983: 23), though he did apparently use it in his lectures to describe Kant’s philosophy (LHP III: 477). Indeed, Hegel criticized formalistic uses of the method of “ triplicity [Triplizität]” (PhG-P §50) inspired by Kant—a criticism that could well have been aimed at Fichte. Hegel argued that Kantian-inspired uses of triadic form had been reduced to “a lifeless schema” and “an actual semblance [ eigentlichen Scheinen ]” (PhG §50; alternative translation) that, like a formula in mathematics, was simply imposed on top of subject matters. Instead, a properly scientific use of Kant’s “triplicity” should flow—as he said his own dialectical method did (see section 1 )—out of “the inner life and self-movement” (PhG §51) of the content.

Scholars have often questioned whether Hegel’s dialectical method is logical. Some of their skepticism grows out of the role that contradiction plays in his thought and argument. While many of the oppositions embedded in the dialectical development and the definitions of concepts or forms are not contradictions in the strict sense, as we saw ( section 2 , above), scholars such as Graham Priest have suggested that some of them arguably are (Priest 1989: 391). Hegel even holds, against Kant (cf. section 3 above), that there are contradictions, not only in thought, but also in the world. Motion, for instance, Hegel says, is an “ existent contradiction”. As he describes it:

Something moves, not because now it is here and there at another now, but because in one and the same now it is here and not here, because in this here, it is and is not at the same time. (SL-dG 382; cf. SL-M 440)

Kant’s sorts of antinomies (cf. section 3 above) or contradictions more generally are therefore, as Hegel puts it in one place, “in all objects of all kinds, in all representations, concepts and ideas” (EL-GSH Remark to §48). Hegel thus seems to reject, as he himself explicitly claims (SL-M 439–40; SL-dG 381–82), the law of non-contradiction, which is a fundamental principle of formal logic—the classical, Aristotelian logic (see entries on Aristotle’s Logic and Contradiction ) that dominated during Hegel’s lifetime as well as the dominant systems of symbolic logic today (cf. Priest 1989: 391; Düsing 2010: 97–103). According to the law of non-contradiction, something cannot be both true and false at the same time or, put another way, “x” and “not-x” cannot both be true at the same time.

Hegel’s apparent rejection of the law of non-contradiction has led some interpreters to regard his dialectics as illogical, even “absurd” (Popper 1940: 420; 1962: 330; 2002: 443). Karl R. Popper, for instance, argued that accepting Hegel’s and other dialecticians’ rejection of the law of non-contradiction as part of both a logical theory and a general theory of the world “would mean a complete breakdown of science” (Popper 1940: 408; 1962: 317; 2002: 426). Since, according to today’s systems of symbolic logic, he suggested, the truth of a contradiction leads logically to any claim (any claim can logically be inferred from two contradictory claims), if we allow contradictory claims to be valid or true together, then we would have no reason to rule out any claim whatsoever (Popper 1940: 408–410; 1962: 317–319; 2002: 426–429).

Popper was notoriously hostile toward Hegel’s work (cf. Popper 2013: 242–289; for a scathing criticism of Popper’s analysis see Kaufmann 1976 [1972]), but, as Priest has noted (Priest 1989: 389–91), even some sympathetic interpreters have been inspired by today’s dominant systems of symbolic logic to hold that the kind of contradiction that is embedded in Hegel’s dialectics cannot be genuine contradiction in the strict sense. While Dieter Wandschneider, for instance, grants that his sympathetic theory of dialectic “is not presented as a faithful interpretation of the Hegelian text” (Wandschneider 2010: 32), he uses the same logical argument that Popper offered in defense of the claim that “dialectical contradiction is not a ‘normal’ contradiction, but one that is actually only an apparent contradiction” (Wandschneider 2010: 37). The suggestion (by the traditional, triadic account of Hegel’s dialectics, cf. section 2 , above) that Being and Nothing (or non-being) is a contradiction, for instance, he says, rests on an ambiguity. Being is an undefined content, taken to mean being or presence, while Nothing is an undefined content, taken to mean nothing or absence ( section 2 , above; cf. Wandschneider 2010: 34–35). Being is Nothing (or non-being) with respect to the property they have as concepts, namely, that they both have an undefined content. But Being is not Nothing (or non-being) with respect to their meaning (Wandschneider 2010: 34–38). The supposed contradiction between them, then, Wandschneider suggests, takes place “in different respects ”. It is therefore only an apparent contradiction. “Rightly understood”, he concludes, “there can be no talk of contradiction ” (Wandschneider 2010: 38).

Inoue Kazumi also argues that dialectical contradiction in the Hegelian sense does not violate the law of non-contradiction (Inoue 2014: 121–123), and he rejects Popper’s claim that Hegel’s dialectical method is incompatible with good science. A dialectical contradiction, Inoue says, is a contradiction that arises when the same topic is considered from different vantage points, but each vantage point by itself does not violate the law of non-contradiction (Inoue 2014: 120). The understanding leads to contradictions, as Hegel said (cf. section 3 above), because it examines a topic from a fixed point of view; reason embraces contradictions because it examines a topic from multiple points of view (Inoue 2014: 121). The geocentric theory that the sun revolves around the Earth and the heliocentric theory that the Earth revolves around the sun, for instance, Inoue suggests, are both correct from certain points of view. We live our everyday lives from a vantage point in which the sun makes a periodic rotation around the Earth roughly every 24 hours. Astronomers make their observations from a geocentric point of view and then translate those observations into a heliocentric one. From these points of view, the geocentric account is not incorrect. But physics, particularly in its concepts of mass and force, requires the heliocentric account. For science—which takes all these points of view into consideration—both theories are valid: they are dialectically contradictory, though neither theory, by itself, violates the law of non-contradiction (Inoue 2014: 126–127). To insist that the Earth really revolves around the sun is merely an irrational, reductive prejudice, theoretically and practically (Inoue 2014: 126). Dialectical contradictions, Inoue says, are, as Hegel said, constructive: they lead to concepts or points of view that grasp the world from ever wider and more encompassing perspectives, culminating ultimately in the “Absolute” (Inoue 2014: 121; cf. section 1 , above). Hegel’s claim that motion violates the law of non-contradiction, Inoue suggests, is an expression of the idea that contradictory claims can be true when motion is described from more than one point of view (Inoue 2014: 123). (For a similar reading of Hegel’s conception of dialectical contradiction, which influenced Inoue’s account [Inoue 2014: 121], see Düsing 2010: 102–103.)

Other interpreters, however, have been inspired by Hegel’s dialectics to develop alternative systems of logic that do not subscribe to the law of non-contradiction. Priest, for instance, has defended Hegel’s rejection of the law of non-contradiction (cf. Priest 1989; 1997 [2006: 4]). The acceptance of some contradictions, he has suggested, does not require the acceptance of all contradictions (Priest 1989: 392). Popper’s logical argument is also unconvincing. Contradictions lead logically to any claim whatsoever, as Popper said, only if we presuppose that nothing can be both true and false at the same time (i.e. only if we presuppose that the law of non-contradiction is correct), which is just what Hegel denies. Popper’s logical argument thus assumes what it is supposed to prove or begs the question (Priest 1989: 392; 1997 [2006: 5–6]), and so is not convincing. Moreover, consistency (not allowing contradictions), Priest suggests, is actually “a very weak constraint” (Priest 1997 [2006: 104]) on what counts as a rational inference. Other principles or criteria—such as being strongly disproved (or supported) by the data—are more important for determining whether a claim or inference is rational (Priest 1997 [2006: 105]). And, as Hegel pointed out, Priest says, the data—namely, “the world as it appears ” (as Hegel puts it in EL) or “ordinary experience itself” (as Hegel puts it in SL)—suggest that there are indeed contradictions (EL Remark to §48; SL-dG 382; cf. SL-M 440; Priest 1989: 389, 399–400). Hegel is right, for instance, Priest argues, that change, and motion in particular, are examples of real or existing contradictions (Priest 1985; 1989: 396–97; 1997 [2006: 172–181, 213–15]). What distinguishes motion, as a process, from a situation in which something is simply here at one time and then some other place at some other time is the embodiment of contradiction: that, in a process of motion, there is one (span of) time in which something is both here and not here at the same time (in that span of time) (Priest 1985: 340–341; 1997 [2006: 172–175, 213–214]). A system of logic, Priest suggests, is always just a theory about what good reasoning should be like (Priest 1989: 392). A dialectical logic that admits that there are “dialetheia” or true contradictions (Priest 1989: 388), he says, is a broader theory or version of logic than traditional, formal logics that subscribe to the law of non-contradiction. Those traditional logics apply only to topics or domains that are consistent, primarily domains that are “static and changeless” (Priest 1989: 391; cf. 395); dialectical/dialetheic logic handles consistent domains, but also applies to domains in which there are dialetheia. Thus Priest, extending Hegel’s own concept of aufheben (“to sublate”; cf. section 1 , above), suggests that traditional “formal logic is perfectly valid in its domain, but dialectical (dialetheic) logic is more general” (Priest 1989: 395). (For an earlier example of a logical system that allows contradiction and was inspired in part by Hegel [and Marx], see Jaśkowski 1999: 36 [1969: 143] [cf. Inoue 2014: 128–129]. For more on dialetheic logic generally, see the entry on Dialetheism .)

Worries that Hegel’s arguments fail to fit his account of dialectics (see section 2 , above) have led some interpreters to conclude that his method is arbitrary or that his works have no single dialectical method at all (Findlay 1962: 93; Solomon 1983: 21). These interpreters reject the idea that there is any logical necessity to the moves from stage to stage. “[T]he important point to make here, and again and again”, Robert C. Solomon writes, for instance,

is that the transition from the first form to the second, or the transition from the first form of the Phenomenology all the way to the last, is not in any way a deductive necessity. The connections are anything but entailments, and the Phenomenology could always take another route and other starting points. (Solomon 1983: 230)

In a footnote to this passage, Solomon adds “that a formalization of Hegel’s logic, however ingenious, is impossible” (Solomon 1983: 230).

Some scholars have argued that Hegel’s necessity is not intended to be logical necessity. Walter Kaufmann suggested, for instance, that the necessity at work in Hegel’s dialectic is a kind of organic necessity. The moves in the Phenomenology , he said, follow one another “in the way in which, to use a Hegelian image from the preface, bud, blossom and fruit succeed each other” (Kaufmann 1965: 148; 1966: 132). Findlay argued that later stages provide what he called a “ higher-order comment ” on earlier stages, even if later stages do not follow from earlier ones in a trivial way (Findlay 1966: 367). Solomon suggested that the necessity that Hegel wants is not “‘necessity’ in the modern sense of ‘logical necessity,’” (Solomon 1983: 209), but a kind of progression (Solomon 1983: 207), or a “necessity within a context for some purpose ” (Solomon 1983: 209). John Burbidge defines Hegel’s necessity in terms of three senses of the relationship between actuality and possibility, only the last of which is logical necessity (Burbidge 1981: 195–6).

Other scholars have defined the necessity of Hegel’s dialectics in terms of a transcendental argument. A transcendental argument begins with uncontroversial facts of experience and tries to show that other conditions must be present—or are necessary—for those facts to be possible. Jon Stewart argues, for instance, that “Hegel’s dialectic in the Phenomenology is a transcendental account” in this sense, and thus has the necessity of that form of argument (Stewart 2000: 23; cf. Taylor 1975: 97, 226–7; for a critique of this view, see Pinkard 1988: 7, 15).

Some scholars have avoided these debates by interpreting Hegel’s dialectics in a literary way. In his examination of the epistemological theory of the Phenomenology , for instance, Kenneth R. Westphal offers “a literary model” of Hegel’s dialectics based on the story of Sophocles’ play Antigone (Westphal 2003: 14, 16). Ermanno Bencivenga offers an interpretation that combines a narrative approach with a concept of necessity. For him, the necessity of Hegel’s dialectical logic can be captured by the notion of telling a good story—where “good” implies that the story is both creative and correct at the same time (Bencivenga 2000: 43–65).

Debate over whether Hegel’s dialectical logic is logical may also be fueled in part by discomfort with his particular brand of logic. Unlike today’s symbolic logics, Hegel’s logic is not only syntactic, but also semantic (cf. Berto 2007; Maybee 2009: xx–xxv; Margolis 2010: 193–94). Hegel’s interest in semantics appears, for instance, in the very first stages of his logic, where the difference between Being and Nothing is “something merely meant ” (EL-GSH Remark to §87; cf. section 2 above). While some of the moves from stage to stage are driven by syntactic necessity, other moves are driven by the meanings of the concepts in play. Indeed, Hegel rejected what he regarded as the overly formalistic logics that dominated the field during his day (EL Remark to §162; SL-M 43–44; SL-dG 24). A logic that deals only with the forms of logical arguments and not the meanings of the concepts used in those argument forms will do no better in terms of preserving truth than the old joke about computer programs suggests: garbage in, garbage out. In those logics, if we (using today’s versions of formal, symbolic logic) plug in something for the P or Q (in the proposition “if P then Q ” or “ P → Q ”, for instance) or for the “ F ”, “ G ”, or “ x ” (in the proposition “if F is x , then G is x ” or “ F x → G x ”, for instance) that means something true, then the syntax of formal logics will preserve that truth. But if we plug in something for those terms that is untrue or meaningless (garbage in), then the syntax of formal logic will lead to an untrue or meaningless conclusion (garbage out). Today’s versions of prepositional logic also assume that we know what the meaning of “is” is. Against these sorts of logics, Hegel wanted to develop a logic that not only preserved truth, but also determined how to construct truthful claims in the first place. A logic that defines concepts (semantics) as well as their relationships with one another (syntax) will show, Hegel thought, how concepts can be combined into meaningful forms. Because interpreters are familiar with modern logics focused on syntax, however, they may regard Hegel’s syntactic and semantic logic as not really logical (cf. Maybee 2009: xvii–xxv).

In Hegel’s other works, the moves from stage to stage are often driven, not only by syntax and semantics—that is, by logic (given his account of logic)—but also by considerations that grow out of the relevant subject matter. In the Phenomenology , for instance, the moves are driven by syntax, semantics, and by phenomenological factors. Sometimes a move from one stage to the next is driven by a syntactic need—the need to stop an endless, back-and-forth process, for instance, or to take a new path after all the current options have been exhausted (cf. section 5 ). Sometimes, a move is driven by the meaning of a concept, such as the concept of a “This” or “Thing”. And sometimes a move is driven by a phenomenological need or necessity—by requirements of consciousness , or by the fact that the Phenomenology is about a consciousness that claims to be aware of (or to know) something. The logic of the Phenomenology is thus a phenomeno -logic, or a logic driven by logic—syntax and semantics—and by phenomenological considerations. Still, interpreters such as Quentin Lauer have suggested that, for Hegel,

phenomeno-logy is a logic of appearing, a logic of implication, like any other logic, even though not of the formal entailment with which logicians and mathematicians are familiar. (Lauer 1976: 3)

Lauer warns us against dismissing the idea that there is any implication or necessity in Hegel’s method at all (Lauer 1976: 3). (Other scholars who also believe there is a logical necessity to the dialectics of the Phenomenology include Hyppolite 1974: 78–9 and H.S. Harris 1997: xii.)

We should also be careful not to exaggerate the “necessity” of formal, symbolic logics. Even in these logics, there can often be more than one path from some premises to the same conclusion, logical operators can be dealt with in different orders, and different sets of operations can be used to reach the same conclusions. There is therefore often no strict, necessary “entailment” from one step to the next, even though the conclusion might be entailed by the whole series of steps, taken together. As in today’s logics, then, whether Hegel’s dialectics counts as logical depends on the degree to which he shows that we are forced—necessarily—from earlier stages or series of stages to later stages (see also section 5 ).

Although Hegel’s dialectics is driven by syntax, semantics and considerations specific to the different subject matters ( section 4 above), several important syntactic patterns appear repeatedly throughout his works. In many places, the dialectical process is driven by a syntactic necessity that is really a kind of exhaustion: when the current strategy has been exhausted, the process is forced, necessarily, to employ a new strategy. As we saw ( section 2 ), once the strategy of treating Being and Nothing as separate concepts is exhausted, the dialectical process must, necessarily, adopt a different strategy, namely, one that takes the two concepts together. The concept of Becoming captures the first way in which Being and Nothing are taken together. In the stages of Quantum through Number, the concepts of One and Many take turns defining the whole quantity as well as the quantitative bits inside that make it up: first, the One is the whole, while the Many are the bits; then the whole and the bits are all Ones; then the Many is the whole, while the bits are each a One; and finally the whole and the bits are all a Many. We can picture the development like this (cf. Maybee 2009, xviii–xix):

4 figures each contains a rounded corner rectangle bisected by a vertical rod. In #1 the rectangle boundary is labeled 'One' and each half is labeled 'Many'; the caption reads:'Quantum: 'one' refers to the outer boundary, 'many' within. #2 has the boundary also labeled 'One' but the halves labeled 'ones'; the caption reads: Number: 'one' on all sides. #3 has the boundary labeled 'Many' and the halves labeled 'Each a one'; the caption reads: Extensive and Intensive Magnitude: 'many' on the outer boundary, 'one' within'. #4 the rounded rectangle is enclosed by a box; the two halves are labeled 'Many (within)' and the space between the rectangle and the box is labeled 'Many (without)'; the caption reads: Degree: 'many' on all sides.

Since One and Many have been exhausted, the next stage, Ratio, must, necessarily, employ a different strategy to grasp the elements in play. Just as Being-for-itself is a concept of universality for Quality and captures the character of a set of something-others in its content (see section 1 ), so Ratio (the whole rectangle with rounded corners) is a concept of universality for Quantity and captures the character of a set of quantities in its content (EL §105–6; cf. Maybee 2009, xviii–xix, 95–7). In another version of syntactic necessity driven by exhaustion, the dialectical development will take account of every aspect or layer, so to speak, of a concept or form—as we saw in the stages of Purpose outlined above, for instance ( section 2 ). Once all the aspects or layers of a concept or form have been taken account of and so exhausted, the dialectical development must also, necessarily, employ a different strategy in the next stage to grasp the elements in play.

In a second, common syntactic pattern, the dialectical development leads to an endless, back-and-forth process—a “bad” (EL-BD §94) or “spurious” (EL-GSH §94) infinity—between two concepts or forms. Hegel’s dialectics cannot rest with spurious infinities. So long as the dialectical process is passing endlessly back and forth between two elements, it is never finished, and the concept or form in play cannot be determined. Spurious infinities must therefore be resolved or stopped, and they are always resolved by a higher-level, more universal concept. In some cases, a new, higher-level concept is introduced that stops the spurious infinity by grasping the whole, back-and-forth process. Being-for-itself (cf. section 1 ), for instance, is introduced as a new, more universal concept that embraces—and hence stops—the whole, back-and-forth process between “something-others”. However, if the back-and-forth process takes place between a concept and its own content—in which case the concept already embraces the content—then that embracing concept is redefined in a new way that grasps the whole, back-and-forth process. The new definition raises the embracing concept to a higher level of universality—as a totality (an “all”) or as a complete and completed concept. Examples from logic include the redefinition of Appearance as the whole World of Appearance (EL §132; cf. SL-M 505–7, SL-dG 443–4), the move in which the endless, back-and-forth process of Real Possibility redefines the Condition as a totality (EL §147; cf. SL-M 547, SL-dG 483), and the move in which a back-and-forth process created by finite Cognition and finite Willing redefines the Subjective Idea as Absolute Idea (EL §§234–5; cf. SL-M 822–3, SL-dG 733–4).

Some of the most famous terms in Hegel’s works—“in itself [ an sich ]”, “for itself [ für sich ]” and “in and for itself [ an und für sich ]”—capture other, common, syntactic patterns. A concept or form is “in itself” when it has a determination that it gets by being defined against its “other” (cf. Being-in-itself, EL §91). A concept or form is “for itself” when it is defined only in relation to its own content, so that, while it is technically defined in relation to an “other”, the “other” is not really an “other” for it. As a result, it is really defined only in relation to itself. Unlike an “in itself” concept or form, then, a “for itself” concept or form seems to have its definition on its own, or does not need a genuine “other” to be defined (like other concepts or forms, however, “for itself” concepts or forms turn out to be dialectical too, and hence push on to new concepts or forms). In the logic, Being-for-itself (cf. section 1 ), which is defined by embracing the “something others” in its content, is the first, “for itself” concept or form.

A concept or form is “in and for itself” when it is doubly “for itself”, or “for itself” not only in terms of content —insofar as it embraces its content—but also in terms of form or presentation, insofar as it also has the activity of presenting its content. It is “for itself” (embraces its content) for itself (through its own activity), or not only embraces its content (the “for itself” of content) but also presents its content through its own activity (the “for itself” of form). The second “for itself” of form provides the concept with a logical activity (i.e., presenting its content) and hence a definition that goes beyond—and so is separate from—the definition that its content has. Since it has a definition of its own that is separate from the definition of its content, it comes to be defined—in the “in itself” sense— against its content, which has become its “other”. Because this “other” is still its own content, however, the concept or form is both “in itself” but also still “for itself” at the same time, or is “in and for itself” (EL §§148–9; cf. Maybee 2009: 244–6). The “in and for itself” relationship is the hallmark of a genuine Concept (EL §160), and captures the idea that a genuine concept is defined not only from the bottom up by its content, but also from the top down through its own activity of presenting its content. The genuine concept of animal, for instance, is not only defined by embracing its content (namely, all animals) from the bottom up, but also has a definition of its own, separate from that content, that leads it to determine (and so present), from the top down, what counts as an animal.

Other technical, syntactic terms include aufheben (“to sublate”), which we already saw ( section 1 ), and “abstract”. To say that a concept or form is “abstract” is to say that it is only a partial definition. Hegel describes the moment of understanding, for instance, as abstract (EL §§79, 80) because it is a one-sided or restricted definition or determination ( section 1 ). Conversely, a concept or form is “concrete” in the most basic sense when it has a content or definition that it gets from being built out of other concepts or forms. As we saw ( section 2 ), Hegel regarded Becoming as the first concrete concept in the logic.

Although Hegel’s writing and his use of technical terms can make his philosophy notoriously difficult, his work can also be very rewarding. In spite of—or perhaps because of—the difficulty, there are a surprising number of fresh ideas in his work that have not yet been fully explored in philosophy.

[EL], The Encyclopedia Logic [Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften I] . Because the translations of EL listed below use the same section numbers as well as sub-paragraphs (“Remarks”) and sub-sub-paragraphs (“Additions”), citations simply to “EL” refer to either translation. If the phrasing in English is unique to a specific translation, the translators’ initials are added.
[EL-BD], Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Basic Outline Part I: Science of Logic [Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften I] , translated by Klaus Brinkmann and Daniel O. Dahlstrom, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
[EL-GSH], The Encyclopedia Logic: Part 1 of the Encyclopaedia of Philosophical Sciences [Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften I] , translated by T.F. Geraets, W.A. Suchting, and H.S. Harris, Indianapolis: Hackett, 1991.
[LHP], Lectures on the History of Philosophy [Geschichte der Philosophie] , in three volumes, translated by E.S. Haldane and Frances H. Simson, New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1974.
[PhG], Phenomenology of Spirit [Phänomenologie des Geistes] . Because the translations of PhG listed below use the same section numbers, citations simply to “PhG” refer to either translation. If the phrasing in English is unique to a specific translation, the translator’s initial is added.
[PhG-M], Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit [Phänomenologie des Geistes] , translated by A.V. Miller, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977.
[PhG-P], Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: The Phenomenology of Spirit [Phänomenologie des Geistes] , translated and edited by Terry Pinkard, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018.
[PR], Elements of the Philosophy of Right [Philosophie des Rechts] , edited by Allen W. Wood and translated by H.B. Nisbet, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
[SL-dG], Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: The Science of Logic [Wissenschaft der Logik] , translated by George di Giovanni, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
[SL-M], Hegel’s Science of Logic [Wissenschaft der Logik] , translated by A.V. Miller, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977.
Aristotle, 1954, The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation (in two volumes), edited by Jonathan Barnes. Princeton: Princeton University Press. (Citations to Aristotle’s text use the Bekker numbers, which appear in the margins of many translations of Aristotle’s works.)
Fichte, J.G., 1982 [1794/95], The Science of Knowledge , translated by Peter Heath and John Lachs, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Citations to Fichte’s work include references to the volume and page number in the German edition of Fichte’s collected works edited by I.H Fichte, which are used in the margins of many translations of Fichte’s works.)
Kant, Immanuel, 1999 [1781], Critique of Pure Reason , translated and edited by Paul Guyer and Allen Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Citations to Kant’s text use the “Ak.” numbers, which appear in the margins of many translations of Kant’s works.)
Plato, 1961, The Collected Dialogues of Plato: Including the Letters , edited by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns. Princeton: Princeton University Press. (Citations to Plato’s text use the Stephanus numbers, which appear in the margins of many translations of Plato’s works.)
Bencivenga, Ermanno, 2000, Hegel’s Dialectical Logic , New York: Oxford University Press.
Berto, Francesco, 2007, “Hegel’s Dialectics as a Semantic Theory: An Analytic Reading”, European Journal of Philosophy , 15(1): 19–39.
Burbidge, John, 1981, On Hegel’s Logic: Fragments of a Commentary , Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press.
Düsing, Klaus, 2010, “Ontology and Dialectic in Hegel’s Thought”, translated by Andrés Colapinto, in The Dimensions of Hegel’s Dialectic , Nectarios G. Limmnatis (ed.), London: Continuum, pp. 97–122.
Findlay, J.N., 1962, Hegel: A Re-Examination , New York: Collier Books.
–––, 1966, Review of Hegel: Reinterpretation, Texts, and Commentary , by Walter Kaufmann. The Philosophical Quarterly , 16(65): 366–68.
Forster, Michael, 1993, “Hegel’s Dialectical Method”, in The Cambridge Companion to Hegel , Frederick C. Beiser (ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 130–170.
Fritzman, J.M., 2014, Hegel , Cambridge: Polity Press.
Harris, Errol E., 1983, An Interpretation of the Logic of Hegel , Lanham, MD: University Press of America.
Harris, H.S. (Henry Silton), 1997, Hegel’s Ladder (in two volumes: vol. I, The Pilgrimage of Reason , and vol. II, The Odyssey of Spirit ), Indianapolis, IN: Hackett).
Hyppolite, Jean, 1974, Genesis and Structure of Hegel’s “Phenomenology of Spirit ”, Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
Inoue, Kazumi, 2014, “Dialectical Contradictions and Classical Formal Logic”, International Studies in the Philosophy of Science , 28(2), 113–132.
Jaśkowski, Stanislaw, 1999 [1969], “A Propositional Calculus for Inconsistent Deductive Systems”, translated by Olgierd Wojtasiewicz and A. Pietruszczak, Logic and Logical Philosophy (7)7: 35–56. (This article is a republication, with some changes, of a 1969 translation by Wojtasiewicz entitled “Propositional Calculus for Contradictory Deductive Systems (Communicated at the Meeting of March 19, 1948)”, published in Studia Logica , 24, 143–160.)
Kaufmann, Walter Arnold, 1965, Hegel: Reinterpretation, Texts, and Commentary , Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company Inc.
–––, 1966, A Reinterpretation , Garden City, NY: Anchor Books. (This is a republication of the first part of Hegel: Reinterpretation, Texts, and Commentary .)
–––, 1976 [1972], “The Hegel Myth and its Method”, in Hegel: A Collection of Critical Essays , Alasdair MacIntyre (ed.), Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press: 21–60. (This is a republication of the 1972 Anchor Books/Doubleday edition.)
Kosok, Michael, 1972, “The Formalization of Hegel’s Dialectical Logic: Its Formal Structure, Logical Interpretation and Intuitive Foundation”, in Hegel: A Collection of Critical Essays , Alisdair MacIntyre (ed.), Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press: 237–87.
Lauer, Quentin, 1976, A Reading of Hegel’s “Phenomenology of Spirit” , New York: Fordham University Press.
Margolis, Joseph, 2010, “The Greening of Hegel’s Dialectical Logic”, in The Dimensions of Hegel’s Dialectic , Nectarios G. Limmnatis (ed.), London: Continuum, pp. 193–215.
Maybee, Julie E., 2009, Picturing Hegel: An Illustrated Guide to Hegel’s “Encyclopaedia Logic” , Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
McTaggart, John McTaggart Ellis, 1964 [1910], A Commentary of Hegel’s Logic , New York: Russell and Russell Inc. (This edition is a reissue of McTaggart’s book, which was first published in 1910.)
Mueller, Gustav, 1958, “The Hegel Legend of ‘Synthesis-Antithesis-Thesis’”, Journal of the History of Ideas , 19(3): 411–14.
Mure, G.R.G., 1950, A Study of Hegel’s Logic , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pinkard, Terry, 1988, Hegel’s Dialectic: The Explanation of a Possibility , Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Priest, Graham, 1985, “Inconsistencies in Motion”, American Philosophical Quarterly , 22(4): 339–346.
–––, 1989, “Dialectic and Dialetheic”, Science and Society , 53(4): 388–415.
–––, 1997 [2006], In Contradiction: A Study of the Transconsistent , expanded edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press; first edition, Martinus Nijhoff, 1997.
Popper, Karl R., 1940, “What is Dialectic?”, Mind , 49(196): 403–426. (This article was reprinted, with some changes, in two different editions of Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge , listed below.)
–––, 1962, Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge , New York: Basic Books.
–––, 2002, Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge , second edition, London: Routledge Classics.
–––, 2013, The Open Society and its Enemies , Princeton: Princeton University Press. (This is a one-volume republication of the original, two-volume edition first published by Princeton University Press in 1945.)
Rosen, Michael, 1982, Hegel’s Dialectic and its Criticism , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rosen, Stanley, 2014, The Idea of Hegel’s “Science of Logic” , Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Singer, Peter, 1983, Hegel , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Solomon, Robert C., 1983, In the Spirit of Hegel: A Study of G.W.F. Hegel’s “Phenomenology of Spirit” , New York: Oxford University Press.
Stace, W.T., 1955 [1924], The Philosophy of Hegel: A Systematic Exposition , New York: Dover Publications. (This edition is a reprint of the first edition, published in 1924.)
Stewart, Jon, 1996, “Hegel’s Doctrine of Determinate Negation: An Example from ‘Sense-certainty’ and ‘Perception’”, Idealistic Studies , 26(1): 57–78.
–––, 2000, The Unity of Hegel’s “Phenomenology of Spirit”: A Systematic Interpretation , Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
Taylor, Charles, 1975, Hegel , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wandschneider, Dieter, 2010, “Dialectic as the ‘Self-Fulfillment’ of Logic”, translated by Anthony Jensen, in The Dimensions of Hegel’s Dialectic , Nectarios G. Limmnatis (ed.), London: Continuum, pp. 31–54.
Westphal, Kenneth R., 2003, Hegel’s Epistemology: A Philosophical Introduction to the “Phenomenology of Spirit” , Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company.
Winfield, Richard Dien, 1990, “The Method of Hegel’s Science of Logic ”, in Essays on Hegel’s Logic , George di Giovanni (ed.), Albany, NY: State University of New York, pp. 45–57.

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Dialectics in psychotherapy, an introduction to the meaning and central role of dialectics in therapy..

Posted September 13, 2019 | Reviewed by Abigail Fagan

The word “dialectic” has a long history, from ancient Greek philosophers, through Hegel and Marx, and to the present day. Its meaning has changed over the centuries, and according to different thinkers. In psychotherapy , “dialectic” is almost wholly associated with dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), where the term identifies a particular type of treatment. In reality, dialectics as used in DBT is a feature of all schools of psychotherapy.

Broadly speaking, a dialectic is a tension between two contradictory viewpoints, where a greater truth emerges from their interplay. Socratic dialog, in which philosophers mutually benefit by finding defects in each other’s arguments, is a classic example. In the early 19th century, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel described a universal dialectic, commonly summarized as “thesis, antithesis, synthesis.”

His esoteric philosophy holds that every thesis, or proposition, contains elements of its own negation. Only by considering both the thesis and its contradiction (antithesis) can one synthesize a greater truth. This process never ends, as the new synthesis itself contains antithetical elements. The term veered in meaning with Marx’s dialectical materialism, and in yet other directions with more contemporary writers. But DBT uses the Hegelian sense, and that is our focus here.

Marsha Linehan faced a problem as she developed DBT in the late 1970s. Her behavioral strategies implicitly pathologized those she sought to help. Clients thought: “If I need to change, there must be something wrong with me.” To avoid re-traumatizing them, she turned to Zen Buddhism’s self-acceptance and focused on clients’ strengths. But this, in turn, downplayed their real need to change. Dr. Linehan and her colleagues realized they would have to integrate change (thesis) and acceptance (antithesis) into a larger truth that incorporates both (synthesis).

This is the fundamental dialectic of DBT, although there are others. For example, the therapist is trustworthy and reliable, but also makes mistakes. The client is doing his or her best but wants to do better. Although worded here using “but” for clarity, DBT teaches clients to use “and” instead. (The therapist is reliable and makes mistakes.) In doing so, the therapeutic task is to embrace the truth of both propositions at once, not to choose one over the other.

An uneasy tension between acceptance and the need for change exists in all psychotherapy, not just DBT. Indeed, this tension underlies a question commonly posed to new clients: “What brings you in now?” Therapy begins only when emotional discomfort and the perceived need for change outweigh the inertia (i.e., acceptance), reluctance, and other factors that precluded it before. Then, once in therapy, change versus acceptance is often an explicit struggle. File for divorce or work on one’s marriage ? Learn to be bolder or accept that one is shy by nature? Change physically through exercise or plastic surgery, or become more comfortable with the body one has?

However, it goes further than this. As Hegel wrote, a clash of thesis and antithesis may result in a new third way, a synthesis that incorporates, yet transcends, both sides of the argument. This “union of opposites” was first described by pre-Socratic philosophers (and by Taoists, as in the well-known Yin-Yang symbol of interdependence). The concept was later adopted by alchemists, who observed that compounding two dissimilar chemicals can result in a third unlike either parent (e.g., sodium, a highly reactive metal, plus chlorine, a poisonous gas, produces table salt). Carl Jung, who studied alchemy, weaved the union of opposites into his various psychological writings. It forms the basis of his “transcendent function” that leads to psychological change; an accessible introduction to this concept can be found here .

The shuttling to and fro of arguments and affects represents the transcendent function of opposites. The confrontation of the two positions generates a tension charged with energy and creates a living, third thing … a movement out of the suspension between the opposites, a living birth that leads to a new level of being, a new situation. Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Vol. 8. 2nd ed., Princeton University Press, 1972. p. 67-91 .

One need not be a Jungian to recognize creative, “third-way” processes in therapy. Instead of being caught on the horns of a dilemma, it often helps to take a step back and appreciate the validity of both positions: It is valid to seek autonomy and relatedness. It is valid to be serious and to play. And it is certainly valid to accept oneself while also striving to change. Insight is our term in depth psychotherapy for achieving synthesis: a position that reconciles and transcends thesis and antithesis, makes sense emotionally, and works in one’s life. In this way, dialectical tension generates all creativity and psychological growth.

Steven Reidbord, M.D. , is a psychiatrist and psychiatric educator with a private practice in San Francisco.

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In philosophy, the triad of thesis, antithesis, synthesis (German: These, Antithese, Synthese; originally: Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis) is a progression of three ideas or propositions. The first idea, the thesis, is a formal statement illustrating a point; it is followed by the second idea, the antithesis, that contradicts or negates the first; and lastly, the third idea, the synthesis, resolves the conflict between the thesis and antithesis. It is often used to explain the dialectical method of German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, but Hegel never used the terms himself; instead his triad was concrete, abstract, absolute. The thesis, antithesis, synthesis triad actually originated with Johann Fichte.

1. History of the Idea

Thomas McFarland (2002), in his Prolegomena to Coleridge's Opus Maximum , [ 1 ] identifies Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (1781) as the genesis of the thesis/antithesis dyad. Kant concretises his ideas into:

Thesis: "The world has a beginning in time, and is limited with regard to space."
Antithesis: "The world has no beginning and no limits in space, but is infinite, in respect to both time and space."

Inasmuch as conjectures like these can be said to be resolvable, Fichte's Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre ( Foundations of the Science of Knowledge , 1794) resolved Kant's dyad by synthesis, posing the question thus: [ 1 ]

No synthesis is possible without a preceding antithesis. As little as antithesis without synthesis, or synthesis without antithesis, is possible; just as little possible are both without thesis.

Fichte employed the triadic idea "thesis–antithesis–synthesis" as a formula for the explanation of change. [ 2 ] Fichte was the first to use the trilogy of words together, [ 3 ] in his Grundriss des Eigentümlichen der Wissenschaftslehre, in Rücksicht auf das theoretische Vermögen (1795, Outline of the Distinctive Character of the Wissenschaftslehre with respect to the Theoretical Faculty ): "Die jetzt aufgezeigte Handlung ist thetisch, antithetisch und synthetisch zugleich." ["The action here described is simultaneously thetic, antithetic, and synthetic." [ 4 ] ]

Still according to McFarland, Schelling then, in his Vom Ich als Prinzip der Philosophie (1795), arranged the terms schematically in pyramidal form.

According to Walter Kaufmann (1966), although the triad is often thought to form part of an analysis of historical and philosophical progress called the Hegelian dialectic, the assumption is erroneous: [ 5 ]

Whoever looks for the stereotype of the allegedly Hegelian dialectic in Hegel's Phenomenology will not find it. What one does find on looking at the table of contents is a very decided preference for triadic arrangements. ... But these many triads are not presented or deduced by Hegel as so many theses, antitheses, and syntheses. It is not by means of any dialectic of that sort that his thought moves up the ladder to absolute knowledge.

Gustav E. Mueller (1958) concurs that Hegel was not a proponent of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, and clarifies what the concept of dialectic might have meant in Hegel's thought. [ 6 ]

"Dialectic" does not for Hegel mean "thesis, antithesis, and synthesis." Dialectic means that any "ism" – which has a polar opposite, or is a special viewpoint leaving "the rest" to itself – must be criticized by the logic of philosophical thought, whose problem is reality as such, the "World-itself".

According to Mueller, the attribution of this tripartite dialectic to Hegel is the result of "inept reading" and simplistic translations which do not take into account the genesis of Hegel's terms:

Hegel's greatness is as indisputable as his obscurity. The matter is due to his peculiar terminology and style; they are undoubtedly involved and complicated, and seem excessively abstract. These linguistic troubles, in turn, have given rise to legends which are like perverse and magic spectacles – once you wear them, the text simply vanishes. Theodor Haering's monumental and standard work has for the first time cleared up the linguistic problem. By carefully analyzing every sentence from his early writings, which were published only in this century, he has shown how Hegel's terminology evolved – though it was complete when he began to publish. Hegel's contemporaries were immediately baffled, because what was clear to him was not clear to his readers, who were not initiated into the genesis of his terms. An example of how a legend can grow on inept reading is this: Translate "Begriff" by "concept," "Vernunft" by "reason" and "Wissenschaft" by "science" – and they are all good dictionary translations – and you have transformed the great critic of rationalism and irrationalism into a ridiculous champion of an absurd pan-logistic rationalism and scientism. The most vexing and devastating Hegel legend is that everything is thought in "thesis, antithesis, and synthesis." [ 7 ]

Karl Marx (1818–1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) adopted and extended the triad, especially in Marx's The Poverty of Philosophy (1847). Here, in Chapter 2, Marx is obsessed by the word "thesis"; [ 8 ] it forms an important part of the basis for the Marxist theory of history. [ 9 ]

2. Writing Pedagogy

In modern times, the dialectic of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis has been implemented across the world as a strategy for organizing expositional writing. For example, this technique is taught as a basic organizing principle in French schools: [ 10 ]

The French learn to value and practice eloquence from a young age. Almost from day one, students are taught to produce plans for their compositions, and are graded on them. The structures change with fashions. Youngsters were once taught to express a progression of ideas. Now they follow a dialectic model of thesis-antithesis-synthesis. If you listen carefully to the French arguing about any topic they all follow this model closely: they present an idea, explain possible objections to it, and then sum up their conclusions. ... This analytical mode of reasoning is integrated into the entire school corpus.

Thesis, Antithesis, and Synthesis has also been used as a basic scheme to organize writing in the English language. For example, the website WikiPreMed.com advocates the use of this scheme in writing timed essays for the MCAT standardized test: [ 11 ]

For the purposes of writing MCAT essays, the dialectic describes the progression of ideas in a critical thought process that is the force driving your argument. A good dialectical progression propels your arguments in a way that is satisfying to the reader. The thesis is an intellectual proposition. The antithesis is a critical perspective on the thesis. The synthesis solves the conflict between the thesis and antithesis by reconciling their common truths, and forming a new proposition.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Opus Maximum. Princeton University Press, 2002, p. 89.
Harry Ritter, Dictionary of Concepts in History. Greenwood Publishing Group (1986), p.114
Williams, Robert R. (1992). Recognition: Fichte and Hegel on the Other. SUNY Press. p. 46, note 37.
Fichte, Johann Gottlieb; Breazeale, Daniel (1993). Fichte: Early Philosophical Writings. Cornell University Press. p. 249.
Walter Kaufmann (1966). "§ 37". Hegel: A Reinterpretation. Anchor Books. ISBN 978-0-268-01068-3. OCLC 3168016. https://archive.org/details/hegelreinterpret00kauf.
Mueller, Gustav (1958). "The Hegel Legend of "Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis"". Journal of the History of Ideas 19 (4): 411–414. doi:10.2307/2708045. https://dx.doi.org/10.2307%2F2708045
Mueller 1958, p. 411.
marxists.org: Chapter 2 of "The Poverty of Philosophy", by Karl Marx https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/poverty-philosophy/ch02.htm
Shrimp, Kaleb (2009). "The Validity of Karl Marx's Theory of Historical Materialism". Major Themes in Economics 11 (1): 35–56. https://scholarworks.uni.edu/mtie/vol11/iss1/5/. Retrieved 13 September 2018.
Nadeau, Jean-Benoit; Barlow, Julie (2003). Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong: Why We Love France But Not The French. Sourcebooks, Inc.. p. 62. https://archive.org/details/sixtymillionfren00nade_041.
"The MCAT writing assignment.". Wisebridge Learning Systems, LLC. http://www.wikipremed.com/mcat_essay.php. Retrieved 1 November 2015.

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Dialectics in Psychotherapy
In the early 19th century, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel described a universal dialectic, commonly summarized as "thesis, antithesis, synthesis." ... But DBT uses the Hegelian sense, and that ...
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in DIALECTICAL BEHAVIOR THERAPY (DBT) THESIS ANTITHESIS Dialectics is like a teeter-totter: the two seats reﬂect opposite sides or truths that can exist at the same time. These opposites sides are called "thesis" and "antithesis." *Adapted from Linehan, M., M., (2015). DBT Skills Training Manual (2nd ed). Guilford Press.
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Dialectics refers to the process of bringing together opposites and being able to view things from multiple perspectives. Socrates coined the term dialectics. Hegel articulated the sequence of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. Healing from mental illness requires a restoration of dialectical processes, or finding the middle path between extremes.
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Dialectics in DBT® •Dialectics in DBT® -The synthesis of thesis and antithesis, which: •Acknowledges that change is the only constant in the universe as we know it, and is a process. •Acknowledges that all things are made of opposing forces. •Brings together the most valuable parts of two polarities to
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and repeat." Upon ﬁnding the synthesis between two opposites, that synthesis over time becomes a new thesis, which has its own opposite or new antithesis. And so it goes. As DBT providers, we practice DBT and its worldview of dialectics as an all-in life philosophy. As such, we know2 that the practical application of dia-
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The concept of dialectical thinking was first established by German philosopher Georg Hegel in the 1800s and he was the originator of the thesis —> antithesis —> synthesis model of logic described below. The developer of DBT, Marsha M. Linehan, describes dialectical thinking or the dialectical process as synthesizing or integrating opposites.
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DBT was developed in response to the problems encountered when applying standard behavioral principles and social learning theories to chronically suicidal individuals who ... which involves a contradiction or "antithesis." Lastly, the synthesis of thesis and antithesis occurs, which, in essence, negates the negation. From a ...
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Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) has been considered effective evidence based psychotherapy for Borderline Personality Disorder in eight randomized clinical trials. ... 1831). His method is often quoted as to consist of the triad of "thesis - antithesis - synthesis".28 According to Hegel, the process by which a phenomenon, behavior, or ...
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This dialectic stance has been inspired by principles of dialectic philosophy (e.g., everything is transient and finite, everything is composed of contradictions, passage of quantitative into qualitative changes, change results from a helical cycle of thesis, antithesis and synthesis). DBT is currently the most extensively studied and used ...
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Dialectics can be summarized as thesis, antithesis, and synthesis; therefore, they capture the synthesis between two opposites. In the case of DBT, the major synthesis for clients and therapists is Acceptance and Change. The process of dialectics makes three basic assumptions: All things are interconnected. Change is constant and inevitable.
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In psychotherapy, "dialectic" is almost wholly associated with dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), where the term identifies a particular type of treatment — even. ... Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel described a universal dialectic, commonly summarized as "thesis, antithesis, synthesis." His esoteric philosophy holds that every thesis, or ...
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Dialectics is a method of logic that identifies the contradictions (antithesis) in a person's position (thesis) and overcomes them by finding the synthesis. Additionally, in DBT a client cannot be understood in isolation from his or her environment and the transactions that occur. Rather, the therapist emphasizes the transaction between the ...
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