Emotion Regulation Skills — MRCPsych Paper B MCQ

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ModeratePsychotherapyEmotion Regulation SkillsMRCPsych Paper B

A 25-year-old woman with borderline personality disorder attends a standard adult dialectical behaviour therapy skills group. She is learning to identify and name emotions, check whether they fit the facts, use opposite action, and reduce emotional vulnerability by attending to physical illness, eating, substance use, sleep and exercise. Which DBT skills module is being taught?

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Correct answer: C — Emotion regulation

C. Emotion regulation is the DBT module containing skills for understanding and naming emotions, checking the facts, opposite action and reducing vulnerability through PLEASE-related self-care. Distress tolerance instead focuses on surviving crises and tolerating distress without making the situation worse. Mindfulness develops non-judgemental awareness of the present moment, while interpersonal effectiveness addresses requesting needs, setting limits and maintaining relationships and self-respect. Walking the middle path principally addresses dialectical thinking, validation and reducing polarised positions, particularly in DBT adaptations for adolescents; it is not the standard adult module containing PLEASE and opposite action.

Reference: South West London and St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust. Kingston adults resources: Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), emotion regulation section. Accessed 19 August 2026. https://swlstg.nhs.uk/kingston-adults-resources