DBT Dialectical Behavior Therapy
Define Your Duende, Teen DBT Group - Online & In-Person
Together we'll practice coping methods, learn skillful communication, and find ways to support each other. We will be learning regulation skills while having fun, learning new strategies for dealing with challenges, and connecting with peers.
Time: Thursdays, 4:30-5:30 pm
Location: Meet online and once a month in-person in South Boulder
Therapist and facilitator: Dylan Leigh
Dylan has worked with teens in many capacities, educator, mentor, therapist, for over a decade. He currently works as Adjunct Faculty at Naropa University’s graduate school of clinical mental health counseling. Dylan also works as a private psychotherapist and organizational consultant.
Pricing: $60/Group, $55/Individual DBT check-in session, $110 Intake session
What is included:
I. One hour DBT in-person skills group weekly. We will cover the full DBT curriculum, 4 modules of 1. Distress Tolerance 2. Mindfulness 3. Emotional Regulation 4. Interpersonal Effectiveness
II. One or two of the following DBT Check-in sessions per quarter:
- A 30-minute phone call or video conference with the teen’s guardian. This session is scheduled with the facilitator to learn about the DBT skills taught that month and to check in with the facilitator about how their teen is doing in the group.
-A 30-minute phone call or video conference once per month for the teen participant. This provides monthly individual attention during the group to review progress and to individualize and fine-tune how they practice their DBT skills.
-A 30-minute phone call or video conference once per month for the teen participant and their guardian(s). This provides a combination of the prior to services in a joint meeting.
WHAT IS DBT?
The goal of DBT is to help clients build a life that they experience as worth living. In DBT, the client and the therapist work together to set goals that are meaningful to the client. Often this means they work on ways to decrease harmful behaviors and replace them with effective, life-enhancing behaviors.
There are four modules in skills training:
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Mindfulness: the practice of being fully aware and present in this one moment
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Distress Tolerance: how to tolerate pain in difficult situations, not change it
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Interpersonal Effectiveness: how to ask for what you want and say no while maintaining self-respect and relationships with others
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Emotion Regulation: how to change emotions that you want to change
Problematic behaviors evolve as a way to cope with a situation or attempt to solve a problem. While these behaviors might provide temporary relief or a short-term solution, they often are not effective in the long-term. DBT assumes that clients are doing the best they can, AND they need to learn new behaviors in all relevant contexts. DBT helps enhance a client’s capabilities by teaching behavioral skills in areas like mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness. These skills help people develop effective ways to navigate situations that arise in everyday life or manage specific challenges.
The term “dialectical” means a synthesis or integration of opposites. The primary dialectic within DBT is between the seemingly opposite strategies of acceptance and change. For example, DBT therapists accept clients as they are while also acknowledging that they need to change in order to reach their goals. In addition, all of the skills and strategies taught in DBT are balanced in terms of acceptance and change. For example, the four skills modules include two sets of acceptance-oriented skills (mindfulness and distress tolerance) and two sets of change-oriented skills (emotion regulation and interpersonal effectiveness).
-*Adapted from https://behavioraltech.org/resources/faqs/dialectical-behavior-therapy-dbt/