3. Choose three days out of the week that are designated chore days when they agree to work together to straighten up the house for ten minutes.

Can you think of any others?

The main idea is making a synthesis is in letting go of the insistence that "I am right and you are wrong," or "things shouldn't be this way." An effective synthesis within oneself means letting go of the "shoulds" and accepting that things are as they are.

Of course this does not mean that a person must like how things are. It really means that to make a greater truth, one has to acknowledge all that is, including both sides of the inner struggle.

An effective synthesis between two people may require a bit of compromise, and in the short run can be more work than holding onto your own point of view.

Often in synthesis between two people, neither gets all that he or she might want. But a person might get enough of what he or she wants to make it work, and the benefits achieved in the long run often outweigh what a person gives up around the actual conflict.

Dialectics is the cornerstone of this treatment; hence the name Dialectical Behavior Therapy.

When a person comes to a DBT Skills Group, he or she shows up with a set of skills already in use. Those skills may or may not be working well, but we believe that people are doing their best all of the time.

We "Radically Accept" (a DBT skill!) that on the one hand things can be no other way and on the other hand they must change. In Skills Group we honor this balance and work to find synthesis between these two truths, by teaching new skills while acknowledging what each individual has been doing up to that point to survive.

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