Willingness vs Wilfulness (DBT)
A handout on the DBT reality acceptance skill of willingness versus wilfulness: recognising when you are fighting reality or refusing to take part, and turning toward what the moment asks, with willing hands and a half-smile as body-based supports.
About this resource
Willingness and wilfulness are reality acceptance skills in the distress tolerance module of Marsha Linehan's DBT skills training. Linehan adopted the terms from Gerald May's writing on will and spirit. Wilfulness is refusing to tolerate the moment, trying to fix everything, giving up, or insisting on being in control; willingness is doing what is needed in each situation, participating fully, and acting from wise mind rather than from the demand that reality be different. The skill sits alongside radical acceptance and turning the mind, and is supported by two body-based practices: half-smiling and willing hands, which use posture to communicate acceptance to the mind.
The concept is closely related to willingness in acceptance and commitment therapy, where it refers to openness to inner experience in the service of valued action, and to the broader finding that struggling against unwanted experience tends to amplify it. In DBT the emphasis is practical: noticing wilfulness as it arises, naming it without judgement, and making the small turn toward willingness, repeatedly.
The professional version adds guidance on recognising wilfulness in the therapy relationship itself, on the common objection that willingness means giving in, and on practising half-smile and willing hands in session.
How to use it
- Introduce the skill after radical acceptance, using a recent example where the client dug in against something they could not change.
- Help the client identify their own signs of wilfulness: a tight jaw, 'I shouldn't have to', arguing with facts, refusing to try, shutting down. Write them down.
- Teach the sequence: notice wilfulness, name it, accept that you are being wilful (without self-attack), turn the mind toward willingness, and ask what the situation needs. Add willing hands and half-smile as physical supports.
- Distinguish willingness from passivity. Willingness can include vigorous action; what it lacks is the demand that reality be otherwise.
- Assign the reflection section and review examples each week, including moments where the client noticed wilfulness but could not shift it.
References
- Linehan, M. M. (2015). DBT Skills Training Manual (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.
- Linehan, M. M. (2015). DBT Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.
- Hayes, S. C., Strosahl, K. D., & Wilson, K. G. (2012). Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: The Process and Practice of Mindful Change (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.
