CONCEPT Continuing & Professional Studies, Palo Alto University

This self-paced training program on Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is part of our Certification training and is presented by Michele Galietta, PhD.

This comprehensive training is designed specifically for individual therapists or skills trainers who are members of an intensively trained DBT team, but have not completed Intensive training themselves. It is meant to assist teams that have hired new staff or experienced turnover by allowing newer team members to get trained in the standard content of DBT.

This program includes training in Skills DBT. The DBT Skills Training program is an excellent means of training new team members and milieu/line staff, and strengthening existing team members’ skills. This self-paced online training program focuses on Skills Training in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT). Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is a comprehensive cognitive behavioral treatment that is increasingly being used in a variety of health settings.  Comprehensive DBT has been found to have great practical utility for the reduction of violence and self-harm. DBT Skills are an essential component of comprehensive DBT and some evidence suggests that skills alone, with case management may efficacious for less acute individuals as well. The primary focus of this course will be the content and delivery of the skills component of DBT with emphasis on relevant adaptations for forensic clients (e.g., substance abuse, skills for reducing violence & obsessional thinking).

Throughout the course, didactic presentation with relevant case examples will alternate with participant practice of DBT skills. This course will contain discussion of strategies for successful implementation and interactive discussion with participants about potential application of DBT Skills to their settings/populations. Participants will learn how to apply and teach the effective DBT skills of Core Mindfulness, Interpersonal Effectiveness, Distress Tolerance, and Emotion Regulation. Participants will also learn how to apply and teach the effective DBT skills of Core Mindfulness, Interpersonal Effectiveness, Distress Tolerance, and Emotion Regulation.

This program includes Forensic Applications of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) training. Dialectical Behavior Therapy is a comprehensive cognitive behavioral treatment originally developed for women with chronic suicidality and borderline personality disorder. Since the 1990s, DBT has been subjected to numerous clinical trials, and been adapted for a variety of populations including adolescents and forensic inpatients and outpatients. DBT has been found to have great practical utility for the reduction of violence and self-harm in forensic settings.

This program will provide participants with a thorough introduction to standard DBT, as well as specific adaptations and strategies useful with a variety of adult and juvenile forensic settings (e.g., jails/prisons, forensic hospitals, juvenile justice settings, probation.) DBT can reduce problem behaviors in individual clients, and also functions to stabilize the milieu by employing eastern principles of acceptance and compassion paired with careful application of behaviorism. The course will discuss comprehensive DBT in forensic settings, and the research supporting this intervention.

The following texts are required for this training program:

• Linehan, M. M. (2014). DBT Skills Training Manual (2^nd ed.). New York, NY: Guilford.
• Linehan, M. M. (2014). DBT Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets (2^nd ed.). New York, NY: Guilford.