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Dialectical Behavior Therapy

SERVICES

About DBT

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is a comprehensive treatment approach developed by Marsha Linehan whose mission, as she states it in her memoire is to: “help get people out of hell.” DBT includes five main aspects of treatment including individual therapy, skills group, 24/7 phone coaching, coordinating care with all mental health providers and caregivers, and ancillary treatment.  In Skills Group, DBT teaches four core skills to effect positive changes in mood and behaviors including: Mindfulness, Distress Tolerance, Emotion Regulation, and Interpersonal Effectiveness.  Not everyone referred for DBT therapy is actually in need of the comprehensive protocol of DBT however, many people with a variety of issues may benefit from a part of the treatment modality.  Together we will assess and determine your needs in order to plan a treatment protocol that is best suited to you.

We offer individual DBT for:

Adults

Teens

in our offices or virtually.

Woman in therapy
SERVICES

DBT For Teens

Are life stressors beginning to overwhelm your teen?

Does your teen need help managing their emotions?

Do they demonstrate poor judgement and impulsive behaviors that get them into trouble?

Are they coping poorly?

Are you concerned they may be compromising their values for the approval of others?

We help teens learn, practice and use specific skills to recognize their emotions, manage their emotions better, improve self-care and self-acceptance, decrease reactivity and impulsiveness, manage relationships and their boundaries in a healthier way, and cope with life’s challenges better than they are doing now.

We offer individual and group counseling to help support and address the needs of your teens using a Cognitive Behavioral, Supportive and Dialectical Behavioral Approach. We are here to help your teen do and feel better!

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is a treatment approach developed by Marsha Linehan. DBT teaches four core skills to effect positive changes in mood and behaviors including: Mindfulness, Distress Tolerance, Emotion Regulation, and Interpersonal Effectiveness. The DBT approach was first created to help people who were chronically suicidal and who frequently used self-harming behaviors, like “cutting” as a coping method. Today “cutting” has become a more frequently occurring phenomenon with the teen population. DBT is the most widely known, and empirically based approach to effectively treat these issues. 

We have found that our skills groups are excellent for teens with or without significant mental health issues.  The four core skills help teens address all the new challenges they are beginning to face in the developmental stage of life they are in.  They are fighting for autonomy and independence, and experiencing more intense relationships and emotions than they ever did before.  The more skills they have to enhance their capacity of awareness, to manage relationships, their emotions, and impulses, the better they will do overall.

We hope you consider learning more about the benefits of DBT Skills Groups for yourself, or your teen and would be happy to set up a complimentary consultation to discuss how DBT might help you.

Teen in DBT therapy

“Learn how to change your own behaviors, emotions, and thoughts that are linked to problems in living and are causing misery and distress.” - Marsha Linehan

SERVICES

DBT Skills Groups

In skills group, we teach the four core skills of Dialectical Behavior Therapy:

Mindfulness

Emotion Regulation 

Distress Tolerance

Interpersonal Effectiveness

People will benefit from these skills if they experience:

  • feelings of emptiness, 
  • pervasive judgmentalness
  • being out of touch with self and others
  • loneliness
  • conflict and stress
  • Absence of flexibility
  • difficulties with change
  • Up-and-down and extreme emotions
  • mood-dependent behavior
  • difficulties in regulating emotions
  • Impulsive behaviors
  • acting without thinking
  • difficulties accepting reality as it is
  • willfulness (a lack of motivation in wanting to change), or
  • addiction
DBT-group

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we have been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” ~Barack Obama

SERVICES

Phone Coaching

It is our opinion that all people lack some level of skillful behavior in all core skills and therefore can benefit from DBT Skills Groups or Phone Coaching.  

We recognize that not all clients need a comprehensive adherent DBT program and may benefit from what the skills alone have to offer.  Research has shown that DBT skills group alone has significant positive outcomes with various clinical populations.  What sets us apart from other local DBT programs is that we offer our skills groups as a stand alone service, and will coordinate care with client’s mental health therapists in order to support their treatment.

We offer Skills Groups for:

Teens 

Young Adults

Parents

Many practitioners are not aware of the full scope and application of comprehensive DBT vs. offering components of theDBT model.  During the intake process we determine the extent to which a client would benefit from “comprehensive DBT” vs. components of DBT.  This includes determining whether a client would benefit from individual therapy vs. Skills Group alone and will discuss our recommendations with you so we can ensure a mutually-agreeable plan.

To register for the next group or if you have questions Contact Today!

Online therapy

“If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way.”
~ Napoleon Hill