Dialectical Behaviour Therapy
What is DBT?
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Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) is a type of cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) specifically designed to help individuals struggling with emotional dysregulation, impulsivity, and complex mental health issues. It's therapeutic process is guided by four key principles:
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Emotional regulation
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Distress tolerance
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Mindfulness
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Interpersonal effectiveness
Emotional regulation
DBT equips individuals with effective strategies to manage intense emotions. Young people learn to identify, label, and tolerate their emotions, reducing impulsive reactions and fostering emotional stability.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness is a central component of DBT. It involves supporting the young persons awareness of the present moment without judgment. They learn to observe their thoughts, feelings and their body sensations without reacting impulsively, enhancing self-awareness and emotional regulation.
distress tolerance
This aspect of DBT helps individuals cope with crisis situations and distressing emotions. We support the young person to acquire skills that helps them tolerate emotional pain without resorting to destructive behaviours.
interpersonal effectivEness
DBT emphasizes the development of healthy interpersonal skills. We develop the young persons' tools to improve their ability to communicate assertively, set boundaries, and strengthen relationships while maintaining self-respect and respect for others.
How we provide DBT
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We offer DBT to the young people through weekly individual therapy sessions, weekly skills group sessions lasting 2 and a half hours and also provide phone coaching from the therapist to facilitate skill generalisation and reinforcement at the point of crisis. This aims to prevent occurrence of target behaviours and increase skill uptake in our young people.
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Benefits of DBT
The benefits of DBT extend far beyond symptom and risk reduction; it empowers individuals to grow emotional resilience and lead more fulfilling, meaningful lives. This is achieved through the formulation of a target hierarchy, prioritising life threatening behaviours, therapy interfering behaviours and quality of life threatening behaviours.