Advanced DBT-A Training: The Complex Principles of the Treatment Model

About the Course

Adolescents in the 21st Century face new opportunities along with many challenges.  This generation of youth is plagued by increased rates of loneliness, sadness, sleep impairment, executive functioning deficits, anxiety and depression.  These youth also experience higher rates of self-harm and suicidal behavior.  Many parents feel overwhelmed by the challenges they face with their teens and are unsure how to effectively parent them.  Many clinicians feel ill-equipped themselves in how to effectively treat multi-problem and high-risk youth.  DBT remains the only well-established intervention for this population.

This advanced training, led by DBT for Adolescent pioneers, Drs. Alec Miller and Jill Rathus, features expert in-depth instruction and video demonstrations on the Adolescent DBT model.  It includes the clinical advancements which have evolved substantially since its beginnings 30 years ago. The trainers will cover: conceptualizing the state of mental health in today’s youth, expanding pre-treatment essentials, running an effective consultation team, providing crisis coaching (in and out of session), applying adolescent-family dialectical dilemmas, strengthening individual therapy adherence, and learning new DBT family and parent modalities and specific strategies.

Learning Objectives

In this training, you will explore:

• Participants will learn 2 ways to utilize life worth living goals to build and maintain commitment to DBT
• Participants will list 3 key points to address during pre-treatment
• Participants will be able to explain the structure of the DBT therapist consultation team meeting
• Participants will name 3 strategies to utilize during a crisis call
• Participants will list 3 common teen-family dialectical dilemmas
• Participants will be able to name 5 required elements of a DBT individual therapy session
• Participants will identify 3 new strategies to use within their DBT family therapy sessions
• Participants will identify 2 criteria to determine when to implement DBT parent sessions

Why attend?

Working with high-risk adolescents requires clinical precision, flexibility, and a deep understanding of the dialectical stance. This advanced training goes beyond the fundamentals, equipping you with practical strategies, nuanced insights, and renewed confidence to sustain therapeutic momentum in the most challenging cases.

Schedule:

14-15 September 2026 from 13:00-17:00 BST,

&

21-22 September 2026 from 13:00-17:00 BST

Prerequisites

This training is suitable for mental health professionals who are part of a DBT team actively delivering full-program DBT-A (or an adaptation thereof).