Amy Gaglia Essletzbichler is a consultant trainer in Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) and an accredited Dialectical Behaviour Therapy Supervisor with SfDBT UK and Ireland. She serves as Chair of the Board of SfDBT UK and Ireland, Chair of the European DBT Association’s (EDBTA) Training and Certification Committee and is also a member of the EDBTA Board.
Amy is a tutor and marker on the NHS England-funded Postgraduate Diploma in DBT at Bangor University, where she was also the founding Co-Deputy Director of the programme. She is a Higher Education Fellow. Her research interests include DBT consultation team processes, supervision, implementation and adherence, as well as lived experience and stigma.
Amy has been practising DBT since 2002. She originally trained in DBT at New York Hospital’s Payne Whitney Outpatient and Day Hospital Programs and completed intensive DBT training with Behavioral Tech (BTECH) in Northampton, USA, in 2004.
Between 2003 and 2008, Amy was a founding member and Team Manager of the Newham DBT Team. With this team she participated in conducting an RCT to research DBT versus treatment as usual in the NHS. From 2008 to 2009, she established a DBT-informed transitional living programme for individuals with severe and enduring mental illness at Project Transition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. She also worked within South London and Maudsley (SLaM) adult services from 2014 to 2016.
Amy currently lives in Vienna and runs a small online private practice in addition to training. She has extensive experience working with a wide range of client populations and is trained in Family Connections, Radically Open DBT (RO-DBT), DBT-PE, and DBT-PTSD.