ABOUT THE GROUP
*Group Currently on Hiatus*
The Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT) Skills Group is based on Marsha M. Linehan’s evidence-based skills training manual: Skills Training for Treating Borderline Personality Disorder. This is a companion to the Cognitive-Behavioural Treatment Manual with the same name. Together they complete the DBT Program that also includes DBT Individual Treatment.
The main objective is to develop awareness and insight in order to behave in ways that attain our goals. DBT helps to develop awareness, understanding, communication, and focus to navigate life and challenging situations.
The Four Skills Modules
1. Core Mindfulness*
These skills enables you to become more flexible in their thinking and avoid being controlled by their emotions. It can help reduce the tendency to react negatively based on internal triggers, allowing you to be fully present in the moment and engage in more productive behaviors.
2. Distress Tolerance
These skills are a set of tools that will enable you to manage intense emotional states without doing anything to make the situation worse. These skills will not necessarily wash away the emotional pain you are feeling but make it more manageable to cope in the moment.
3. Emotional Regulation
These skills refers to a person’s ability to understand and accept his or her emotional experience, to engage in healthy strategies to manage uncomfortable emotions when necessary, and to engage in appropriate behavior (e.g., attend classes, go to work, engage in social relationships) when distressed. You will learn tools that will help control urges to engage in impulsive behaviors, such as self-harm, reckless behavior, or physical aggression, during emotional distress.
4. Interpersonal Effectiveness
These skills are the life skills we use every day to communicate and interact with other people, individually and in groups. Interpersonal skills include not only how we communicate with others, but also our confidence and our ability to listen, understand and be heard more effectively. Problem solving, decision making and personal stress management are also considered interpersonal skills.
*Core Mindfulness is completed every 4 weeks as a refresher and introduction to the other 3 modules. New members may enter at this 4 week period as the Skills Group is ongoing. Each member will complete 12 DBT Skills Groups to complete the group portion of the program.