Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is a research-based cognitive behavioral treatment model that was originally developed by Dr. Marsha Linehan to treat chronically suicidal individuals diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD). DBT is recognized as the gold standard psychological treatment for this population. In addition, research has shown that DBT is effective in treating a wide range of other psychological problems such as eating disorders, suicidal and self-harm behavior, substance abuse, depression, bipolar disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

The treatment model views emotion dysregulation as the core of a variety of emotional, cognitive (thinking), relational, identity (self-concept), and behavioral problems. The overarching goal of DBT is to help people create lives worth living by helping them learn psychological and social skills to regulate and manage their emotions. The dialectical nature of this approach means that treatment will include teaching you acceptance and change strategies to help you build the life you want.

There are four major components of a comprehensive DBT program: skills training group, individual treatment, DBT phone coaching, and consultation team.

1. Skills Training Group focuses on enhancing clients’ capabilities to solve problems in life by teaching behavioral skills and help people learn new psychological, emotional, and social/relationship skills.
2. Individual Sessions improve client motivation for the treatment to build a life worth living, replace problematic behaviors with functional behaviors, and help clients apply skills to specific challenges and events in their lives. The reduction of maladaptive behaviors impacting the client’s life in a negative way is discussed and a target hierarchy is developed to build greater awareness of triggers, emotions, thoughts, and actions. This is done through the completion of diary cards and behavior chain analysis.
3. DBT Phone Coaching is focused on providing clients with in-the-moment coaching on how to use skills to effectively cope with difficult situations that arise in their everyday lives. Clients can call their individual therapist between sessions to receive coaching at the times when they need help the most.
4. DBT Therapist Consultation Team is designed to help therapists be adherent to the treatment model and enhance therapists’ capabilities and motivation so they can provide the best treatment possible. Our team meets biweekly for an hour and a half and is composed of individual therapists and group leaders who share responsibility for each client’s care.

1.  Mindfulness: increase attentional control and nonjudgmental awareness and build a more positive self-concept or identity. Mindfulness is the practice of being fully aware and present in our lives.

2.  Emotion Regulation Skills: understand and name emotions, increase positive emotions, decrease emotion vulnerability, and decrease emotional suffering.

3.  Interpersonal Skills: build empathy, maintain relationships, and improve relationships while balancing assertion with self-respect.

4.  Distress Tolerance Skills: tolerate highly distressing experiences without doing things impulsively that end up making the situation worse and increasing dysregulation overall.

5.  Dialectics, “Middle Path”, “Wise Mind”: balance competing goals, interests, and perspectives and build cognitive and emotional flexibility.

The full curriculum for skills training runs for 24 weeks. Group leaders assign home practice to help clients practice the skills in their everyday lives.

Comprehensive DBT includes all four components of DBT: individual therapy, group skills training, phone coaching and DBT consultation team. DBT-Informed Treatment will include some of the methods or structure of DBT, but may not meet all the components of a comprehensive DBT model. With DBT-informed treatment, only the methods that are most needed are used to meet the individual needs of a client.

1.  Experience dysregulation in at least two of the five domains:

• Emotion Dysregulation- unmanageable, intense emotions including depression, anxiety, and anger
• Interpersonal Dysregulation- chaotic relationships, fear of abandonment
• Self Dysregulation- identity disturbances, difficulties with sense of self, sense of emptiness
• Behavioral Dysregulation- suicidal behaviors, intentional self-harm, impulsive behaviors, avoidance
• Cognitive Dysregulation- paranoid ideation, dissociative responses, maladaptive thinking patterns

2.  Committed to individual therapy
3.  Committed to skills training group (24 weeks)
4.  At least 13 years old

In Person Teen DBT Skills Training Group in Greensboro on Wednesdays 5:30-7:00pm

Virtual Teen DBT Skills Training Group on Mondays 5:30-7:00pm

Virtual Young Adult Skills Training Group on Tuesday s 10:30am-12:00pm

Group list updated as of December 1, 2021 

Learn more about DBT by visiting www.behavioraltech.org