Doing Individual DBT Sessions: A Step-by-Step™

Course Description

DBT skills training groups may be where we ‘put’ new skills into the hands of our DBT clients, but individual DBT sessions are where we help our clients ‘drag’ and practice new, carefully tailored solutions where they need them most. For many DBT therapists the delivery of individual DBT sessions remains daunting long after their initial DBT training. There’s little point in mincing words here: individual DBT sessions can be tough work for both therapist and client. The individual DBT therapist has a lot to do and cover, usually with clients who are experiencing intense emotions in-session in the face of many competing and high-risk problems.

However, comprehensive DBT also provides the individual DBT therapist with some powerful behavioural tools which help structure and organise sessions. Most importantly is competency in the art and science of good behavioural chain analysis alongside the ability to successfully draw on the four evidence-based change strategies which can serve as solutions for our clients’ problems: skills training, cognitive restructuring, contingency management, and exposure. Success with chain analysis requires precision and managing to avoid getting lost in the weeds, and implementing effective solutions requires a keen focus on multiple change strategies which nearly fit the situation at hand. Like we said, this isn’t easy!

Doing Individual DBT: A Step-by-Step Two Day Workshop is intended to bring to life these problem solving strategies at the heart of the individual DBT session. We’ll be helping delegates deepen their existing knowledge of the steps in carrying out chain analysis through a mix of teaching, modelling, role-plays, and advance written homework. We’ll also be devoting time to putting each of the four change strategies in DBT into practice with an emphasis on maximising the impact of each DBT session. Throughout the workshop we’ll be weaving in discussion and examples of the threads which hold the DBT individual therapy session together, namely validation (i.e. helping to show clients how their experiences and behaviours make sense) and dialectics (i.e. helping clients become flexible in their responses and become aware of multiple view-points in any given situation). We’ll also be paying attention to the communication strategies that serve as the engine which keeps DBT sessions moving – the movement between irreverence and being reciprocal – while showing delegates how to benchmark the sequence and structure of a typical DBT session.

Delegates must currently be delivering individual DBT therapy sessions in a fully comprehensive DBT programme which includes all modes of DBT: skills training group, individual DBT therapy, between-session coaching, and therapist consultation meetings.

It is expected that delegates will have attended prior training in comprehensive DBT (e.g. a five day foundation training or a ten day intensive or equivalent). We are open to considering applications from delegates who may have trained through other non-traditional means such as personal study and supervision or through in-house training with their comprehensive DBT team. The absolute essential requirement is that you come already knowing the basics of DBT (which won’t be covered) and are looking to enhance your ability to deliver individual DBT sessions.

All delegates will be expected to complete and submit case-based homework in advance of the workshop, and places may be forfeit in the absence of this homework. Optimally delegates will bring audio or video recordings of case work which we can use for consultation purposes, although recordings won’t be mandatory (but your willingness to role-play in front of the group will!)

We’re excited to be delivering this training again. Individual DBT sessions are truly where the rubber meets the road in DBT and can be immensely powerful and gratifying work when done well. We’d like the workshop to offer you a basket of ideas which will help up your game in providing individual DBT sessions and increase your satisfaction in your DBT work while we’re at it, since greater mastery and greater satisfaction go hand in hand.

Prerequisites

Delegates must currently be delivering individual DBT therapy sessions in a fully comprehensive DBT programme which includes all modes of DBT: skills training group, individual DBT therapy, between-session coaching, and therapist consultation meetings.

Trainers