So what exactly is “comprehensive” DBT anyway…
Comprehensive DBT consists of four treatment modalities:
1
Individual Therapy
You and I will meet 1 time weekly for 50 minutes to address your treatment targets and overall motivation.
2
Skill Training Group
You will participate in a 2 hour group 1 time weekly. For teens, this is a family group that is 1.5 hours weekly. The group focuses on learning skills in four major areas: Mindfulness, Emotion Regulation, Interpersonal Effectiveness, and Distress Tolerance. Teen family group will also explore Middle Path skills.
3
Phone Coaching
Having trouble in “real time” and not sure what to do? You can call me for a brief interaction focused on problem solving/identifying skills to help you manage the problem.
4
Therapist Consultation Team
I will meet 1 time weekly for 1.5 hours with a team of other DBT clinicians to best support our work together.
Skill Training Group Modules
There are 4 “modules” in the skills training group. Overall, these skills help to replace dysregulated behaviors and emotions with more effective responses to life stressors.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness skills are the core skills of the DBT skill training group; they provide a foundation for learning and practicing the other skills modules. Mindfulness helps us to become more aware of ourselves and the present moment and can also alleviate chronic emptiness associated with chronic behavioral and emotional dysregulation.
Emotion Regulation
Emotion regulation skills are the skills we use to decrease the frequency of our unwanted emotions and increase the frequency of wanted emotions, such as joy, excitement, love. These skill also offer insight on how to reduce our overall vulnerability to experiencing intense, out of control emotions.
Interpersonal Effectiveness
Interpersonal effectiveness skills guide us to improve relationships, uphold our own self-respect, get the things we want and need from relationships and end destructive relationships. These skills are also useful in helping us “walk the middle path” in our relationships. In teen multifamily skills group, we dive further into walking the middle path.
Distress Tolerance
Distress tolerance skills help us to survive crises in our lives. They provide ways to get through the crisis without making it worse, or acting on any behaviors we may later regret. They also provide us the tools necessary to accept painful situations in our lives.