DBT Teen Skills Group

DBT is highly effective in the treatment of numerous disorders in adolescents including Borderline Personality, Major Depression, Bipolar Disorder, Eating Disorders, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and self-destructive behavior. These disorders can greatly impact the ability of a teen to function, jeopardize school performance, and adversely affect personal relationships. At the Delray Center for Healing, our DBT Teen Skills Group has been developed to help clients learn and apply productive skills that will decrease emotional dysregulation and unhealthy reactions to strong emotions.

The DBT Teen Skills Group structure has been adapted specifically to the needs of teenagers, in order to optimize treatment outcomes. Just like in the adult version, this is a highly structured group and clients must commit to the full schedule of sessions.

Participants in the DBT Teen Skills Group will master four skill sets:

Mindfulness Skills

Group members learn to observe, describe and participate in thoughts, sensations, emotions and external phenomena without judging these experiences as “good” or “bad.” Mindfulness skills are essential to successful advancement in the DBT Teen program.

Interpersonal Effectiveness Skills

Participants learn to successfully assert their needs and manage conflict in their relationships. This is accomplished through learning and practicing highly effective interpersonal skills.

Emotion Regulation Skills

Emotional regulation skills help participants identify and manage emotional reactions in healthy and adaptive ways. The tools learned in this module help reduce the negative emotional surge that may result from an adverse event.

Distress Tolerance Skills

Group members learn ways to accept and tolerate distress without resorting to negative or destructive behaviors.

DBT Teen Skills Group is a 2-hour group run by 2 therapists. The curriculum is organized into a number of modules that run over the course of 16 weeks. These groups are usually run in the evenings, at 5:00PM, to fit into most academic schedules.