DBT Essentials Training

Course details:

DBT Essentials is a 3-day course from the Association for Psychological Therapies (APT). All three days need to be attended.

Course aims and objectives:

The DBT Essentials course covers:

• Validation.
• Definition of validation, and why it is important.
• Validation and its dialectical balance with problem solving and change strategies.
• Linehan's Biopsychosocial model of Borderline Personality Disorder, and how validation fits in with it.
• The implication of invalidating environments for a child, and for the adult.
• What constitutes an invalidating environment, including 'ideal' environments ... and a validating one, including how to create it.
• Exercises on creating validating responses to specific statements.
• Different ways of validating.
• Using validation in your own situation.
• Metaphors.
• How metaphors work and why we should use them.
• 6 Examples of metaphors.
• 4 Metaphors you can use repeatedly, for common problem situations.
• General principles of metaphors, including visual metaphors.
• Metaphors exercise.
• A case example, to illustrate the use of validation and metaphor.
• Relentless problem solving.
• The five stage problem solving strategy.
• Forms for clients (and you) to use with problem solving.
• Problem solving exercise.
• Personal experience of problem solving: exercise.
• Contingency management.
• Video demonstration of differential reinforcement in a clinical setting.
• The nature of contingency management and how it interacts with the conscious or unconscious motivations of the client.
• Behavioural analysis, especially as a response to severe behaviour such as parasuicidal behaviour.
• Chain analysis and solution analysis.
• Case example.
• Emotion-regulation exercise, especially including the focus on biological elements such as: sleep, exercise, illnesses, circadian rhythm.
• Interpersonal effectiveness exercise. To be effective interpersonally proves to be a key skill, and the research evidence is impressive on this. It is therefore one of the four skills taught in DBT, addressing frequent interpersonal issues.
• Mindfulness.
• A definition and description of mindfulness and the best purposes it can fulfil.
• Kabat-Zinn's descriptions of mindfulness.
• Mindfulness and its role in balancing 'the emotional mind' with 'the reasonable mind' to achieve 'the wise mind'.
• The three 'What' skills of mindfulness.
• The three 'How' skills of mindfulness.
• Mental Health problems to which mindfulness can be applied.
• An on-going introspective exercise in mindfulness.
• Distress tolerance.
• 'Distraction behaviours' that may be used to contradict and neutralise distress.
• 'Radical' distress tolerance: doing nothing. How to do nothing: the fact of this turning out to be an effective approach for many people, and the theory behind it.
• Walking the Middle Path
• What this means, why it is important, and an overview of some of the exercises involved.

For further information, or if you have booked a place on the course and have not received notification to attend please contact the Workforce Development & Learning Administrative Team. Please do not turn up to any course unless you have received notification of your place as the event may be fully booked.