4-Day Intensive Workshop: Flexibly and Responsively Providing Dialectical Behavior Therapy (June 2023)

Course Overview

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) was originally created to treat adults with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and suicidal behaviors (Mehlum, 2021). The creation of DBT was ground-breaking in providing a highly effective approach for previously stigmatized presentations. DBT is a cognitive behavioral treatment that incorporates dialectics of acceptance and change, behavioral conceptualization, and concrete skills in mindfulness, interpersonal effectiveness, emotion regulation, and distress tolerance. DBT has been shown to be highly effective in reducing symptoms such as suicidal and self-harm behaviors and improving quality of life for adolescents and adults struggling with BPD (Gillespie et al., 2022).

The full adherent treatment model of DBT, called “Comprehensive DBT” consists of four components: weekly skills group (2 to 2.5 hours long, with modules consisting of Mindfulness, Emotion Regulation, Interpersonal Effectiveness, and Distress Tolerance), weekly individual therapy, 24/7 in vivo phone coaching, consultation team (attended by all DBT therapists) (O’Hayer, 2021). However, many patients do not have access to comprehensive DBT programs, and many clinicians are unable to provide every component of the model (Valentine et al., 2020). Thus, many clinics offer standalone DBT skills groups, and many providers offer DBT-informed individual psychotherapy.

Since DBT became the “gold standard” treatment for BPD, self-harm, and suicidal behaviors, numerous studies have emerged regarding the effectiveness of DBT for other disorders as well. Emerging studies have found strong outcomes in using DBT for substance use disorders (Warner & Murphy, 2022), Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and complex trauma (Bohus et al., 2020), and eating disorders (Brown et al., 2020). Researchers have developed cultural adaptations of DBT to more effectively support communities of color and marginalized groups that were not sufficiently represented in earlier DBT studies (Haft et al., 2022). DBT practitioners and critics have examined ways to challenge problematic aspects of DBT interventions and have suggested ways to hold an anti-racist DBT stance, such as ideas presented in the article, “You Didn’t Cause Racism, and You Have to Solve it Anyways”: Antiracist Adaptations to Dialectical Behavior Therapy for White Therapists (Pierson et al., 2022).

Given these multicultural, diagnostic, and practical considerations, flexibility and responsiveness are key in providing effective, individualized DBT. While some DBT trainings often focus on only the fully adherent, BPD-specific application of DBT, this training will teach the core DBT interventions and discuss how to provide DBT flexibly with responsiveness to different presentations and cultural populations. Experiential exercises, case examples, and multimedia will be used to provide applied, practical, clinical learning. An overview of the history, theory, and model of DBT will be presented, alongside discussions of diverse applications of DBT for different diagnostic presentations, populations, and settings. DBT-based conceptualization of behavior and symptoms will be discussed, and skills from each skills module (Mindfulness, Emotion Regulation, Interpersonal Effectiveness, and Distress Tolerance) will be presented and practiced. The primary focus of this training is on how to provide DBT in a flexible, responsive, and individualized manner, while maintaining fidelity to DBT core principles and practices.

Learning Objectives

Course Bibliography

Approvals

Cognitive Behavior Institute, #1771, is approved as an ACE provider to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Regulatory boards are the final authority on courses accepted for continuing education credit. ACE provider approval period: 06/30/2022-06/30/2025. Social workers completing this course receive 18 total credits including 17 clinical continuing education credits.

Cognitive Behavior Institute, LLC is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Psychology as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychologists #PSY-0098 and the State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers #SW-0646 and the State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed mental health counselors #MHC-0216.

Cognitive Behavior Institute has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 7117. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. Cognitive Behavior Institute is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.

Cognitive Behavior Institute is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Cognitive Behavior Institute maintains responsibility for content of this program. Social workers, marriage and family therapists, and professional counselors in Pennsylvania can receive continuing education from providers approved by the American Psychological Association. Since CBI is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education, licensed social workers, licensed marriage and family therapists, and licensed professional counselors in Pennsylvania will be able to fulfill their continuing education requirements by attending CBI continuing education programs. For professionals outside the state of Pennsylvania, you must confirm with your specific State Board that APA approved CE's are accepted towards your licensure requirements. The Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) has a process for approving individual programs or providers for continuing education through their Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. ACE approved providers and individual courses approved by ASWB are not accepted by every state and regulatory board for continuing education credits for social workers. Every US state other than New York accepts ACE approval for social workers in some capacity: New Jersey only accepts individually approved courses for social workers, rather than courses from approved providers. The West Virginia board requires board approval for live courses, but accepts ASWB ACE approval for other courses for social workers. For more information, please see https://www.aswb.org/ace/ace-jurisdiction-map/. Whether or not boards accept ASWB ACE approved continuing education for other professionals such as licensed professional counselors or licensed marriage and family therapists varies by jurisdiction. To determine if a course can be accepted by your licensing board, please review your board’s regulations or contact them. State and provincial regulatory boards have the final authority to determine whether an individual course may be accepted for continuing education credit.

Accommodation Information: Our webinars are available to anyone who is able to access the internet. For those who are vision impaired graphs and videos are described verbally. We also read all of the questions and comments that are asked of our speakers. All questions and comments are made via the chat function. For those that require it, please contact us at info@cbicenterforeducation.com for more information on and/or to request closed-captioning.

TICKETS TO THIS WEBINAR ARE NON-REFUNDABLE/NON-TRANSFERABLE. ALL SALES ARE FINAL. REFUNDS WILL NOT BE ISSUED FOR ANY REASON OTHER THAN THE EVENT’S CANCELLATION BY CBI