In our Accelerated DBT Program, DBT skills are taught in a structured group format using Marsha Linehan’s 2015 updated curriculum. The DBT skills group is limited to a maximum of ten participants, and is run very much like a class or a seminar. It meets two times per week for two hours each time in a virtual setting.

The curriculum includes the following five DBT skill modules:

Core Mindfulness

This module teaches participants how to gain awareness of the present moment, learn how to direct their attention, and to observe and describe what they are feeling and thinking in the moment without judgments or pushing away reality. These skills can help to develop a more stable sense of who they are, and can help reduce reactivity to painful thoughts and emotions.

Distress Tolerance

Distress Tolerance targets impulsivity by teaching adults how to effectively tolerate the urges that accompany emotions while considering pros and cons of their actions. These skills are designed to help replace problem behaviors such as self-injury, substance use, binge eating, and angry outbursts.

Emotion Regulation

These skills address emotional vulnerability, rapid mood changes, and steady lowered mood states like those in chronic depression, anxiety, or anger. Participants will learn how to identify and label emotions, how to increase the likelihood of positive moods, and how to reduce vulnerability to Emotion Mind.

Interpersonal Effectiveness

This module addresses difficulties in developing and maintaining consistent and rewarding relationships by teaching skills such as how to ask for what you want, how to say no in an effective way, and how to maintain a sense of self-respect and independence in the face of powerful environments.

Middle Path

These skills target extreme and non-balanced thinking and behavior by learning about common areas of conflict and polarization, both internal and external, and reducing this conflict by learning strategies including behavioral change, validation and acceptance.

All participants in our Accelerated DBT Program benefit from our team participation in weekly therapist consultation. Our DBT treatment team meets weekly for two hours to share feedback and to discuss methods to ensure effective and compassionate treatment. We spend time problem-solving our own therapist difficulties that interfere with client progress in treatment, and help keep each other practicing within a dialectical framework by coaching one another on skills to use with clients.

Participants in our Accelerated DBT Program also have the option to engage in individual DBT psychotherapy with a member of our team both during and after their time in the program. Individual DBT psychotherapy is the main avenue of developing and refining the ability to apply skills taught in DBT skills training to daily life. DBT clients usually meet individually with their therapist one to two times per week for a forty-five minute session. A benefit of doing so would be access to ongoing phone coaching. This part of the treatment is designed to promote use of skills where it matters most – in daily life. When our clients feel unsure of how to approach a particular situation, they are encouraged to contact their individual therapists for help in using DBT skills.