Join the Authentic Movement event with Dr Hillary McBride on Friday, October 18, 7:30pm, at Elgin Hall in South Surrey.
Do you often feel overwhelmed by intense emotions, leading to impulsive actions and strained relationships? Are you searching for ways to understand your emotions, build resilience, and foster more stable and fulfilling connections with others? You don’t have to do this all alone. Our team of professional counselors specializing in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) can provide you with the support and guidance needed to feel less reactive and more emotionally resilient.
Originally developed by Dr. Marsha Linehan at the University of Washington, DBT counselling has been successfully used to help people move forward from being stuck in dysregulated emotions and thoughts, into building a better life. DBT is a gold-standard or evidence-based treatment approach designed to help individuals develop effective coping strategies when distressed, improve mindfulness, emotional regulation, and enhance interpersonal relationships. DBT has been described as CBT (cognitive behaviour therapy), plus validation, plus mindfulness.
DBT sends the dialectical (or seemingly contradictory) message that you are doing the best you can, and you can do better. It says that everything you think, feel, and do makes perfect sense, and it also gives you the tools to facilitate useful change, reduce your suffering, and get closer to meeting your needs and goals.
DBT can be particularly beneficial for teenagers, parents, working professionals, and anyone who experiences intense emotional reactions, difficulty managing stress, or struggles with self-destructive behaviours. Our team of professional counsellors is committed to helping you navigate the complexities of your emotional world and empowering you to create lasting, positive change in your life. DBT has been shown to be highly effective for many problems people face. In particular, it can be highly effective for people struggling from the following:
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Dr. Linehan, the creator of DBT, defines dialectical as a synthesis or integration of opposites. Dialectical strategies help both the therapist and the client get unstuck from extreme positions. DBT brings together and balances two seemingly opposite strategies: acceptance and change. In DBT, therapists accept clients as they are, while also acknowledging that they need to change to reach their goals. In addition, the skills and strategies taught in DBT are balanced in terms of acceptance and change.
The B stands for Behavioural. DBT requires a behavioural approach. That means that in DBT session, the therapist will assess the situation and target behaviours that are relevant to a client’s goals + needs, to figure out how to solve the problems in their life. It also means learning and implementing coping skills. These skills focus on four main areas: mindfulness, emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and interpersonal effectiveness.
Mindfulness is the foundation of DBT, teaching people to cultivate awareness of the present moment, acknowledge their thoughts and emotions without judgment, and develop a non-reactive attitude toward their experiences. By practicing mindfulness, you can learn to respond to daily stressors and emotional triggers with greater clarity, focus, and calmness.
Emotion regulation skills help people work with their difficult emotions more effectively. These skills help foster greater emotional awareness, decrease emotional vulnerabilities, and change unwanted emotions. By mastering emotion regulation, you can enhance your ability to cope with challenging situations, both at home and in the workplace.
Distress tolerance techniques aim to build resilience in the face of emotional distress or crisis, teaching individuals how to tolerate intense emotions without resorting to self-destructive or self-defeating behaviours. Sometimes things happen that are beyond our control. Yet we may have trouble accepting the facts and can find ourselves fighting the reality of the situation. Distress tolerance skills help you to recognize and accept the things you cannot change, and stop fighting reality. These skills can help you to get through life’s tough moments and crises without making matters worse.
Interpersonal effectiveness skills focus on improving communication, assertiveness, and conflict resolution, enabling individuals to maintain healthy relationships and achieve their personal goals. Clients learn to effectively ask for what they want or say no, and feel good about themselves when doing so. These skills are particularly valuable for parents seeking to foster stronger connections with their children, as well as working professionals looking to enhance their relationships in the workplace.
DBT skills work best when practiced regularly, and in combination with one another.
We offer both individual DBT sessions and DBT Skills Training groups. These treatment modalities can be used separately as stand-alone therapies, yet it’s most effective to combine them.
Individual Therapy: In individual DBT sessions, you will work one-on-one with your counsellor to explore your emotional experiences, identify self-destructive patterns, and develop healthy coping strategies.
Group Skills Training: DBT skills training groups provide a supportive environment for learning DBT skills, alongside others who face similar life challenges. It is useful for fostering a sense of connection and encouragement on your journey toward emotional resilience. The group, which is structured much like a class, is focused on enhancing peoples’ capabilities through skills training. There, clients are offered concrete strategies to improve their lives. In between sessions, group members are asked to regularly practice using the skills they are learning in their daily lives and to report back to the group on the experience.
Our professional counsellors will work closely with you to develop a personalized DBT treatment plan, tailored to your unique needs and goals. We will help you decide what treatment approach is right for your personal situation. Whether it be through individual DBT, DBT skills training group, or both, you will learn various skills and strategies to help you manage your emotions, cope with distress, improve focus, and improve relationships. Through DBT you will work towards building a better, more fulfilling life.
In our daily acts of living, loving, working, healing, learning & playing, we would like to acknowledge with gratitude that we are on the traditional & unceded territory of the Katzie, Kwantlen, Semiahmoo and other Coast Salish Peoples. Huy ch q’u.
