Life with two

A lesson in dialectics

Hi! I’m Jacqueline Nesi, a clinical psychologist, professor at Brown University, and mom of two young kids. Here at Techno Sapiens, I share the latest research on psychology, technology, and parenting, plus practical tips for living and parenting in the digital age. If you haven’t already, subscribe to join nearly 20,000 readers, and if you like what you’re reading, please consider sharing Techno Sapiens with a friend.

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4 min read

It’s been 72 hours since I gave birth to my second child. Dinnertime is approaching and we’re lingering around the kitchen. With four of us now, the space suddenly feels unfamiliar. Like we’re play actors in a first rehearsal, weaving clumsily around each other as we try to find our new places. My husband is rifling through the freezer, listing frozen dinner options from a local Italian restaurant—chicken piccata? Veal parmesan? I’m holding the baby in one arm and a bottle in the other, small drips of formula snaking through my fingers. 

My toddler, maybe recognizing the new unfamiliarity of this old space—or maybe just being a toddler—starts spinning around in circles. He careens toward a cabinet. I tell him to stop. He does not stop. He falls hard. He cries.    

My husband rushes to him, assesses the damage—no blood, all teeth accounted for—and picks him up. Now the baby is crying, too. I’m sweating as I try wiggling the bottle in the baby’s mouth, offering distracted It’s okay’s! And Shhhh’s to no one in particular. 

My toddler wails and turns to me, arms outstretched. His eyes grow wide as they dart between the baby’s face and mine. Mom can’t hold me anymore! He cries.¹ 

Now I’m crying too.

I survey the scene. Frozen Italian dishes scattered across the counter, toys littering the floor, two screaming children, one crying adult, everyone covered in tears and spit up and sweat and snot.²

My husband looks at me, his hair wild, shirt stretched loose from tiny fingers pulling on it, and says, with great conviction:

We. Are. Thriving.

And now I’m crying again, this time from laughing so hard.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy: A (very) brief history

In these early days of life with a toddler and a newborn, I’ve found myself thinking a lot about a treatment called Dialectical Behavior Therapy.

In the early 1990s, psychologist Marsha Linehan was frustrated with existing mental health treatments. Traditional “behavioral” treatments, she found, were too focused on problem-solving. For her patients, many of whom struggled with chronic suicidal behaviors and difficult life circumstances, this intense focus on changing their thoughts and behaviors felt invalidating, out of step with the reality of their everyday experiences. Efforts to enact change were important, but they weren’t enough.

Linehan began to explore alternate philosophies. At the opposite end of the spectrum, she found something called radical acceptance. An idea borrowed from Eastern (Zen) traditions, the idea was to accept one’s life circumstances exactly as they were, and to simply tolerate distressing negative emotions, without trying to change them. This, she argued, also had value, but wouldn’t work on its own.

And so, Linehan got to work integrating the two philosophies into one treatment—balancing these opposing needs for change and acceptance—and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) was born. Thirty years later, DBT is widely used, and multiple meta-analyses have shown that it’s effective in treating a range of mental health concerns.³

So, what’s the deal with the word “dialectical”? The name DBT derives from the concept of “dialectics,” or the process of synthesizing opposites. Dialectics have a long history in the philosophy world, where, in the days of Socrates and Plato, they referred to a dialogue—one person presents an argument (thesis), another presents a counterargument (antithesis), and ultimately, a synthesis is reached.

In DBT, this dialogue is often internal, something we grapple with individually, but the idea is still to work toward synthesizing opposites. This concept can be summarized simply:

Two opposite things can both be true at once. 

Both can be true

When I was training as a DBT therapist in graduate school, I remember learning about dialectics. Sitting in a windowless room in a psychology clinic, thumbing through a training manual, and fishing a pen out of my backpack to underline it: two opposite things can both be true at once. I remember grasping the concept intellectually, memorizing it and spitting it back out when it was time to solve a problem, like a math equation on an exam.

But it still felt abstract, like a matter of semantics. Isn’t there actually just one way that’s correct? One way of doing things, one way of feeling, one way of understanding our experiences in the world? If my son’s yogurt is in his hair, it’s not also in his bowl. If I’m spending time working on my laptop, I’m not also spending that time with my kids.

But in this phase of transition, of sorting out life as a parent of two, something has changed. As I’ve held a screaming baby over my shoulder with one hand, clumsily turning the pages of Goodnight Moon with the other hand, balancing the book on one leg and a toddler on the other, yelling GOODNIGHT SOCKS over the screams, dialectics has snuck up on me.⁴

Because how is it possible that I could want the screaming to stop, the goodnight noises everywhere to finally wrap things up, but also want this moment never to end? To want to speed up time and slow it down, all at once? To feel so exhausted, but so happy? To laugh and cry in the same breath? How could this all feel impossibly hard, and also exactly as it’s supposed to be? 

Two opposite things can both be true at once.

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1. For what it’s worth, in the past few weeks my toddler seems to be coming around on the whole “big brother” concept. Though he does seem to be coping by developing eclectic music tastes, included repeated demands for the songs Wagon Wheel (specifically Darius Rucker version), Tennessee Whiskey by Chris Stapleton, and Make My Heart Fly by the ‘80s Scottish rock duo The Proclaimers (?). He’s also very into this violin rendition of Viva La Vida by “the guy with the bun” that he once saw on YouTube.

2. I wasn’t quite prepared for the level of chaos that this life chapter would bring. The other night, amidst the bedtime flurry of bath taking, tooth brushing, PJ finding, and baby shushing, I turned around to find my toddler seated naked on the floor, leafing hastily through a small, printed copy of the Gettysburg Address? No idea where it came from, nor why it was so easily accessible during his bedtime routine. For what it’s worth: he slept great.

3. This is is the subject of its own post(s), but in addition to its focus on “dialectics” in the therapeutic process, DBT involves four “skills training” modules. These are: Mindfulness, Distress Tolerance (i.e., getting through intense emotions without making things worse), Emotion Regulation (i.e., understanding and managing emotions), and Interpersonal Effectiveness (i.e., social skills and managing relationships). I apply (or, at least try to apply) these skills in my own life almost everyday. Forever grateful to my supervisors at this clinic in North Carolina for teaching me how to be a better therapist but also, you know, a better human.

4. In addition to embracing dialectics, another proven method of managing one’s postpartum emotions is purchasing tiny, adorable overpriced sweaters and matching holiday jammies for your children. This is most effective when done between the hours of 2 and 4am.

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