Continuing & Professional Studies, Palo Alto University

This on-demand professional training program on an Introduction to Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is part of our Certification training and is presented by Michele Galietta, Ph.D.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is a comprehensive cognitive-behavioral therapy designed for severe and multi-diagnostic patients. While it was initially developed for women with chronic suicidality and borderline personality disorder, it is increasingly used in various health settings for a breadth of "difficult-to-treat" patients. Since the 1990s, DBT has been subjected to numerous clinical trials and adapted for various populations, including adolescents and forensic inpatients and outpatients. Comprehensive DBT has been found to have practical utility for reducing violence and self-harm. In addition, it can reduce problem behaviors in individual clients and stabilize the milieu by employing eastern principles of acceptance and compassion paired with careful behaviorism.

 This program will discuss the dialectical nature of DBT, i.e., the balance between change-based technology (via behavior therapy) with acceptance-based principles (via validation) in depth. In addition, this program describes the theoretical and empirical foundations for DBT. It reviews empirical findings, limitations of the current research, and the extent to which research findings are generalizable. In addition, this program examines the structure of DBT, treatment targets, and DBT’s philosophical assumptions. Lastly, using case examples, this program demonstrates how DBT treats or ameliorates mental health problems rather than just managing them.