DBT skills programme for emotion regulation difficulties

Dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) is one of the most researched treatments for people with difficulties in regulating their emotions. DBT is a team-based programme which entails weekly individual therapy and a skills class, access to phone skills coaching available seven days a week and DBT team consultation*.

Clients who are unable to commit to the twice-weekly programme can attend the skills classes alone without ongoing one-to-one sessions subject to the outcome of assessment or a referral letter.

Entry is possible at the start of each module.

What will I learn?

There are four core DBT modules which are attended as part of the full DBT programme. It takes 34 weeks to complete them all once. If your goals revolve particularly around enhancing relationships you can also attend the advanced 10-week module called ‘Interpersonal skills in action’. 

• Six-week core mindfulness and middle path module is designed to teach you how to increase your awareness levels, decrease reactivity, habitual behaviour and judgmentalness, train your attention, allow current moment experiences instead of suppressing, avoiding or constantly changing them, and how to be more compassionate towards yourself. This module will also teach you how to avoid taking extreme positions and instead acknowledge the validity of different positions and perspectives.
• Eight-week distress tolerance module is centred on accepting difficult situations and emotions and finding ways to survive and tolerate the moment without engaging in problematic behaviours such as self-harm, conflict, substance misuse or other impulsive behaviours. You will learn how to respond to stressful and overwhelming emotions by engaging both your body and mind in the process. This module will cover both strategies of change and acceptance.
• 12-week emotion regulation module involves learning to recognise and label current emotions, identify obstacles to changing emotions, reduce emotional vulnerability and reactivity, increase positive emotions and harness a more positive long-term outlook, and change emotions that are unhelpful or unwarranted. This module will also teach you how to gradually decrease avoidance of feelings and become more comfortable experiencing emotions.
• Eight-week interpersonal effectiveness module teaches strategies aimed at improving your communication in order to foster healthy relationships. You will learn skills to ask for what you need, say no, set boundaries and cope with interpersonal conflict in a way that influences others whilst enhancing the relationship and your self-respect. This module is of particular relevance to individuals who experience their relationships as chaotic, intense and unstable, and those who feel that their needs are never met in relationships.
• 10-week interpersonal skills in action is an advanced module for people who have attended the interpersonal effectiveness DBT module and want to enhance their interpersonal skills further, improve existing relationships and build new ones. In this module you will learn about the theory and practice of dialectical thinking, balancing opposites, how to balance intense desire for change with acceptance of the moment, validation of self and others, recovering from invalidation, building new relationships, getting people to like you, how to communicate our emotions to others, mindfulness of others, reinforcement and strategies for changing behaviour. There will also be two practice sessions to immerse yourself in the application of the skills. You will also be able to bring your own real-life scenarios and receive suggestions from the group trainer on how to approach them skillfully.

How will I learn?

DBT classes are designed to be interactive, not where you passively listen to the facilitator. You can expect to be challenged by the didactics, demonstrations and discussions. The aim of this approach is to encourage you to help you maximise your use of the tools that you will be learning. New skills are presented each week and homework tasks are assigned for participants to practice during the week.

Homework is reviewed at the next class. To enhance learning and the effective application of newly acquired knowledge and skills, people who commit to the full DBT programme will have access to phone skills coaching, which can be accessed at times of heightened distress seven days a week. The goal of this is for people to get better at using the skills when they are needed most, such as during times of intense emotion, crisis or conflict.

Who should join?

There is no specific diagnostic requirement for participation in our programme. If any of the following challenges interfere with the quality of your life, whether you were given a formal diagnosis or not, DBT can help:

• Emotional sensitivity and difficulties returning to a calm emotional baseline.
• Episodes of extreme emotional pain and attempts to stop it with self-harm, alcohol, substances or sex.
• Enormous fear of abandonment and trying to avoid it at all costs. 
• Rapidly changing moods, anger, recurrent depression, feelings of guilt and shame and high stress.
• Chaotic relationships where you either frantically pursue or impulsively cut others off. 
• Intense emotions and unmanageable distress which lead you to behave in ways that you don’t understand. 
• Impulsive urges and behaviours that lead to feelings of shame, regret or self-hate. 
• The skills classes are also suitable for people who are engaging in the stabilisation and safety stage of trauma-focused therapy outside of our team. 
• The skills classes can be adjunct to outside care or a part of a larger treatment plan and can be applied as a treatment for some eating and mood difficulties, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress and substance misuse, and is now the go-to treatment for improving emotional regulation skills in those diagnosed with ADHD and ADD. 

Find out more and book your place on our website: mind-reframed.com