The DBT Program
I provide DBT as a member of the Middle Path Counseling team. For further information visit www.middlepathcounseling.com.
What is DBT?
Dialectical Behavior Therapy, or DBT, is an intensive outpatient therapy for people who are struggling to manage their emotions, stress, relationships, and impulsive behaviors (i.e.: self-injury, suicide, drug/alcohol use, eating disorders). DBT is a combination of cognitive-behavior therapy and mindfulness practice, and has shown to be effective in helping adolescents and adults with these difficulties . DBT therapists take a compassionate view toward people, accepting you for who you are, and also helping you change and work toward your goals. Our program serves youth age 13 to 25.
“The main goal of DBT is to help you build a life worth living.”
DBT teaches you how to:
Our DBT program in a nutshell:
Through a combination of individual counseling and skills training, people learn new ways to get through painful feelings and tolerate pain when they need to, without doing things to make their situation worse. Our full DBT program is 40 weeks long. This is the recommended length of treatment to gain the maximum benefit of DBT. We also offer an abbreviated 20-week program for youth who would benefit from DBT but are not engaging in life-threatening behaviors.
Individual Therapy Weekly:
Each client meets weekly with his or her intensively trained DBT therapist to work on:
Skills Class Weekly:
Each client also attends weekly skills training. This is not a therapy group. It is a class that teaches you essential life skills:
Family Counseling sessions are available as needed to for parents and teens to work together on making positive changes.
Phone Coaching calls with the individual therapist are encouraged to help apply skills into real-life situations while they are happening.
For more information about how DBT works please read this document provided by Behavior Tech.
What is DBT?
Dialectical Behavior Therapy, or DBT, is an intensive outpatient therapy for people who are struggling to manage their emotions, stress, relationships, and impulsive behaviors (i.e.: self-injury, suicide, drug/alcohol use, eating disorders). DBT is a combination of cognitive-behavior therapy and mindfulness practice, and has shown to be effective in helping adolescents and adults with these difficulties . DBT therapists take a compassionate view toward people, accepting you for who you are, and also helping you change and work toward your goals. Our program serves youth age 13 to 25.
“The main goal of DBT is to help you build a life worth living.”
DBT teaches you how to:
- understand and manage your emotions (Emotion Regulation)
- handle stress without making impulsive or destructive choices (Distress Tolerance)
- get what you need from other people, while keeping your relationships and your self-respect (Interpersonal Effectiveness)
- focus your mind and center yourself (Mindfulness)
- balance your thinking and understand other perspectives (Walking the Middle Path)
- apply all these skills in your real life
Our DBT program in a nutshell:
Through a combination of individual counseling and skills training, people learn new ways to get through painful feelings and tolerate pain when they need to, without doing things to make their situation worse. Our full DBT program is 40 weeks long. This is the recommended length of treatment to gain the maximum benefit of DBT. We also offer an abbreviated 20-week program for youth who would benefit from DBT but are not engaging in life-threatening behaviors.
Individual Therapy Weekly:
Each client meets weekly with his or her intensively trained DBT therapist to work on:
- Decreasing life-threatening behaviors (violence to self or others)
- Increasing quality-of-life behaviors (things that help you have the life you want)
Skills Class Weekly:
Each client also attends weekly skills training. This is not a therapy group. It is a class that teaches you essential life skills:
- Mindfulness Skills, to build awareness of what is happening inside you and in the world around you
- Distress Tolerance Skills, to get yourself through difficult situations
- Emotion Regulation Skills, for recognizing and managing your emotions
- Interpersonal Effectiveness Skills, for communicating with others what you want, while keeping your relationships and your self-respect
Family Counseling sessions are available as needed to for parents and teens to work together on making positive changes.
Phone Coaching calls with the individual therapist are encouraged to help apply skills into real-life situations while they are happening.
For more information about how DBT works please read this document provided by Behavior Tech.