DBT Services

What is Dialectical Behavior Therapy?

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is a powerful, specialized treatment particularly successful with adolescents and adults dealing with out of control behaviors such as self-harm (cutting, burning, suicidal thinking, bingeing), uncontrolled anger, drug and alcohol abuse, emotional over-reactivity, PTSD, depression, anxiety, stress, borderline personality disorder and eating disorders.

DBT teaches one to begin to use more effective coping skills that will enable the individual to begin to bring these problem behaviors under control and create a life worth living.

Developed by Marsha Linehan, DBT therapy has been recognized as a successful form of treatment for these difficult problems where other treatments have failed.

DBT SERVICES:

Individual DBT Therapy – tracks problem behaviors and encourages the use of DBT skills.

Adult DBT Group – weekly sessions in which current issues involving relationships, in and outside the home, are explored, and appropriate coping responses, in place of problematic ones, are identified and practiced.

Adolescent DBT Group – weekly sessions in which current issues involving family and social relationships are explored, and corresponding emotions and appropriate coping responses, in place of problematic ones, are identified and practiced.

DBT Skills Groups teach the four DBT Key Skills to help individuals learn new coping strategies to replace problematic ones. These are known as:

• Mindfulness – These skills teach patients to retrain their focus to the here and now in order to help them attain attentional and emotional control.
• Emotion Regulation – Individuals are taught the basic components of feelings, as well as means to enhance and more fully enjoy positive emotions, while concurrently decreasing and tolerating negative feelings.
• Interpersonal Effectiveness – The aim of this set of skills is to teach individuals the basics of interpersonal interactions including how to ask for help and reassurance from others, how to assert one’s needs, and how to express one’s self in a manner that others can readily respond to.
• Distress Tolerance – Tolerating distress is one of the most difficult tasks people need to learn. This skill set teaches individuals how to cope with and distract themselves during moments of overwhelming emotion and during a crisis.

All of our Center’s DBT services are provided by experienced, certified DBT therapists. During therapy sessions, the therapist and client work together learning and improving basic social skills as well as managing emotional upsets. Healthy, appropriate behaviors are taught and reinforced in place of old inappropriate and destructive ones.