DBT Needs Commitment

 

DBT is a great program that can really change lives. Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) was originally developed by Marsha Linehan to help people who experience intense emotions and difficulties managing them. While it was first designed for people with Borderline Personality Disorder, it is now widely used with many different populations, including people with substance use difficulties and adolescents and parent dyads. Natalie has experience in running DBT with both of these groups of people. 

 

In Simple Terms DBT helps people who often find themselves:

• Feeling emotions more intensely than others

• Acting impulsively when distressed

• Struggling in relationships

• Feeling stuck in cycles of crisis

• Having difficulty accepting themselves while also wanting to change

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The overall aim is to increase behavioural effectiveness, emotional balance, psychological flexibility, and meaningful connection with others, so that people can build lives that feel more stable, purposeful, and worth living.

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You may be considering DBT for several reasons. You may have had people say that it would be helpful for you, or you may have figured that yourself. However, like most things that are worthwhile in life, it takes commitment and willingness to try new things. 

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The commitment you need to make to DBT is a significant amount of time, finances and willingness to change. 

 

DBT requires:

 

• Skills group every week for 2 hours for 12 weeks (broken down into 3x 4week modules and with at least a week break between modules).

• Homework for skills group that will help you practice your new skills. This is discussed by all participants at the start of each group. 

• Individual sessions every week to help you think through challenges that came up for your during the week and how to apply skills in those situations.

• Completion of a skills diary sheet every day that you will take to individual sessions.

• Financial commitment to both the group program and individual sessions. These need to be occurring at the same time ie individual session and group session every week. Medicare rebates may be available for both the group and individual program to a maximum of 10 sessions of individual sessions and 10 groups sessions per calendar year.