Setting up a Dialectical Behaviour Therapy Informed Program (for DBT Teams)

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  • Melbourne Part 1: 7th & 8th December 2015 – 9am to 4pm
  • Program implementation by participants in their workplace. Australian DBT Institute facilitators make monthly contact over the phone/skype to support program implementation
  • Melbourne Part 2: 17th & 18th June 2016 – 9am to 4pm

This four day day program is targeted at mental health professionals looking to start a DBT program. It is recommended that clinicians attend with colleagues who will be members of your DBT program.

Workshop Fees:

  • 1-3 Team members $1,000 (ex. GST) each
  • 4 plus Team members $900 (ex. GST) each

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Course Prerequisites

The Introduction to the Management of Emotion Dysregulation using DBT workshop is a prerequisite for this workshop. Clinicians are required to be trained to a level where they have knowledge of DBT, the standard content and processes of DBT.

Clinicians providing the Skills Component of their DBT program are expected to have also completed the following Skills Training in DBT (Mindfulness & Emotion Regulation) and Skills Training in DBT (Distress Tolerance & Interpersonal Effectiveness). 

Clinicians providing the Individual Therapy component of their DBT program are expected to have completed the following training Individual Therapy in DBT, Skills Training in DBT (Mindfulness & Emotion Regulation) and Skills Training in DBT (Distress Tolerance & Interpersonal Effectiveness)

Topics covered:

  • Overview of DBT (Research, Theoretical Basis, Stages of Treatment, Structure)
  • Commitment
  • Skills Training
  • Individual Therapy
  • Phone Coaching
  • Contingencies
  • Middle Path (Behaviouralism, Dialectics & Validation)
  • Setting up your DBT Program

This four day training focuses on the overall application of Dialectical Behaviour Therapy geared towards all participants having an understanding of, commitment to and benefits Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) can have for your clients.

This course will consolidate your DBT knowledge and offers skills based non‐judgemental approach to the management of client’s with Borderline Personality Disorder and clients who are self harming. In particular key concepts of Core Mindfulness and Distress Tolerance as acceptance based modules; teaching clients how to live with reality “as it is” will be explored. Emotion Regulation and Interpersonal Effectiveness as change‐oriented modules, teaching clients how to alter themselves or their environments will also be addressed.

This course will go through all the structures, components and resources required to run a successful DBT or DBT Informed program.

Stylistic strategies:

How to reframe suicidal and other behaviours as part of the clients learned ‘problem solving’ repertoire. Participants will learn to balance active problem solving with validating the client’s current emotional state and behavioural responses. This session will teach you to blend a ‘matter‐of‐fact’, irreverent attitude towards current and previous dysfunctional behaviours with warmth, flexibility and responsive- ness to the client.

Attention to contingencies:

Ways to influence behaviour. BPD individuals actively avoid threatening situations. This session will as- sist participants to expose client in session and in vivo to fear eliciting stimuli. Participants will learn to arrange and encourage exposures.

Validation:

This session will be an in‐depth practice of validating the client’s thoughts feelings and actions. Participants will learn to search for the grain of wisdom or truth in each client response and know how to communicate that to the client. The emphasis here is on building and maintaining a positive, interpersonal, collaborative relationship between client and therapist

Format and organisation of sessions:

Learn how to structure a session and stay on task. Learn how to use diary cards to maximise success of a session. Participants will learn to manage issues that come up in session in a timely manner and how to conduct chain analysis of problem behaviours.

Core Mindfulness Skills:

Learn how to practice mindfulness with your clients every session. This session will focus on using skills to balance emotion mind and reasonable mind to achieve wise mind. Participants will practice strategies through roles play and observe and describe skills that will then be able to impart to clients.

Interpersonal effectiveness skills:

Learn effective strategies for asking for what one needs, saying no and coping with conflict. Learn how to assist your clients in analysing a situation and determining goals for interpersonal effectiveness.

Emotion regulation skills:

Suicidal behaviours are often behavioural solutions to intolerably painful emotions. Learn to assist clients in identifying the difference between their primary emotion (adaptive and appropriate to the context), and their secondary response (intense shame, anxiety or rage). Learn ways of exposing your client to their primary emotion in a non judgmental atmosphere.

Distress tolerance skills: 

The ability to tolerate and accept distress is essential. Learn how to teach clients to perceive their own environment without putting demands on it to be different. Learn how to teach clients to experience their own emotional state without attempting to change it, and to observe their own thoughts and action patterns without attempting to stop or control them.

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