Overview
I am offering this training to assist Health Care Professionals who work with patients with Personality Disorders especially Borderline Personality Disorders (BPD) and people who suffer from many other disorders who have difficulty in not being able to moderate their emotions. I have trained over 2000 health care professionals in the last 12 years.
I have worked in this field both as a Health Care Professional in Psychiatric Hospitals, the co-ordinator of DBT researched programs and as an Individual Dialectical Behaviour Therapist (DBT). I am very aware of the fatigue, frustration and burn-out that Health Care Providers experience in working with this client group. Latest research shows that DBT is the only evidenced based treatment for BPD and as of 2015 DBT is researched based to assist with many other mental health disorders.
In designing this training I have been mindful of Professor Marsha Linehan’s researched model and I spend time explaining how DBT’s ideal structure includes, the 12 month Skills Training program, individual DBT therapy, Phone Coaching and the consult team of therapists. In this training I describe how DBT is now evidenced based to assist many other client groups as Professor Marsha Linehan has described in her latest 2nd Edition DBT Skills Training Manual 2015. I also take participants through the latest changes to DBT for Adolescents (Jill Rathus and Alec Miller 2015).
The training I offer contains two full days, one comprising the theory of DBT, the evidence behind DBT and a detailed explanation of how to work with the dialectics of many scenarios with patients and also the varied methods of validation that are a main component of DBT. Full descriptions of how to phone coach, how to fully understand the DBT framework in a Consult Group, how to follow the rules and be consistent in DBT are taught. As I am a Registered Art Therapist I add a creative exercise to the 'Wise Mind' Skill. All participants can experience this creative exercise at the end of the first day. (No artistic talent required).
The last day of the training, I take all participants through the ‘Skills Training Manual”. I look at the basis of each of the four Modules of DBT, Mindfulness, Emotional Regulation, Distress Tolerance and Interpersonal Effectiveness. I teach these skills how they would be taught in a ‘Skills Training Group” with patients and also how to work in Individual DBT Therapy sessions. I also show participants some images created by clients who have attended DBT sessions with creativity added.