Adult DBT Skills Group

The Delray Center offers DBT Skills programming that can meet your needs and schedule

Numerous clinical trials have shown DBT to be highly effective in the treatment of numerous disorders, including Borderline Personality Disorder, mood disorders, co-occurring disorders, and self-destructive behaviors. Additionally, it is also adaptable for the treatment of depression, anxiety, and eating disorders with successful results.

The Delray Center’s Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Group allows clients to learn and apply productive coping mechanisms and strategies. These skills decrease emotional dysregulation and unhealthy reactions related to strong emotions. Our DBT Skills Group is highly structured, and clients must commit to the full schedule of sessions in order to get the most out of their therapy.

At the Delray Center for Healing, Dialectical Behavior Therapy is the clinical cornerstone of our program. All of our psychotherapists are intensively-trained in DBT by the Linehan Institute, and we are one of the few centers to feature a DBT-trained psychiatrist, our medical director Dr. Raul J. Rodriguez. The Delray Center offers the five functions of comprehensive DBT, including individual DBT skills coaching and our Skills Group, which covers all four DBT modules.

The four skill sets covered in the Dialectical Behavior Therapy Group

Through the course of our Adult DBT Skills Group, participants will learn and practice all four modules, under the supervision of an individual DBT therapist and a DBT group facilitator. Each module contains different clusters of skills sets. The skills learned in DBT group are designed to improve mindfulness, interpersonal effectiveness, emotional regulation, and distress tolerance.

Mindfulness Skills

Mindfulness refers to self-awareness of one’s urges, feelings, thoughts, and behaviors. Practicing mindfulness empowers DBT participants to take charge of their lives in a new and healthier way. Group members in our Adult DBT Skills Group learn to mindfully participate in thoughts, sensations, emotions and outside phenomena, without categorizing these experiences as “good” or “bad.” Mindfulness skills are essential to successful advancement within the DBT Program.

Interpersonal Effectiveness Skills

Individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder, depression, anxiety, OCD and other mood disorders often struggle with personal relationships. The interpersonal effectiveness module in Dialectical Behavior Therapy addresses patterns of dysfunction or chaotic relationships. Participants in out Adult DBT Skills Group learn to successfully voice their needs. They also learn to manage discord in their personal and professional relationships.

Emotion Regulation Skills

Learning how to self-regulate overwhelming emotions is perhaps the most important part of Dialectical Behavior Therapy. Individuals who are recommended to DBT often have chronic issues with emotional dysregulation. This can manifest in numerous ways: Panic attacks, explosive outbursts, crippling anxiety, and dramatic mood swings are just a few examples. Emotional regulation skills help participants identify and manage emotional reactions in healthy and adaptive ways. in the emotional regulation module, participants learn concrete, tangible techniques to manage a wide variety of emotions.

Distress Tolerance Skills

Finally, effective DBT therapy relies on developing a tolerance to emotional distress. Prior to practicing DBT, many participants relied on unhealthy or maladaptive behaviors to deal with stress and discomfort. These may include: isolation, avoidance, self-medication, self-harm, risky sexual behavior, or other self-destructive actions. In the distress tolerance module, group members learn ways to accept and tolerate distress without resorting to the self-destructive or maladaptive behaviors that have caused them problems in the past.

Getting started in Adult DBT Skills Group

In order to start DBT group therapy, clients must be working with a DBT therapist at the Delray Center. If you are unsure if Dialectical Behavior Therapy is right for you, we recommend scheduling an initial consultation with one of our psychiatrists here at the Delray Center. Both individual and group DBT can flexibly be accommodated into one’s work or school schedule; this includes our evening DBT group. For most participants, going through all four modules can take about six months. However, clients can continue doing individual DBT skills training with their therapist after they complete the group, so they can continue to hone their skills.