Program Overview

If you’re a parent of an emotionally sensitive child, then you’ve likely experienced intense feelings of confusion, guilt, or anger over your child’s behavior. This program will not only help your parenting, but it will also help you manage these feelings. You’ll learn DBT skills along with your child that will help you improve communication, reduce stress while fostering long-term behavioral change for your child. 

The goal of our program is to help your children increase their ability to cope with intense emotions, be more effective in their interactions with family and friends, and for older children to assist families in their own practice of the skills necessary to help their children transition out of a family home successfully.

Program Details

This program is designed to meet the needs of both your child and your family. It can include therapy sessions that both parents (or a single parent) can attend with their child as well as participation in a multi-family group skills course.

Assessment (1 session)

Before starting our program you’ll have a 60-minute assessment session with one of our therapists so that we can better understand the issues that you’re experiencing and determine if DBT, and our center, are a good fit for your family. During this session, we’ll discuss the prevalence of:

• Impulsive behaviors

• Difficulty regulating emotions

• Family Interpersonal challenges 

At this session, we’ll also determine if you and your child will be best suited to participate in an individual therapy approach, or if you’ll be committing to our multi-family skills group program. 

Pre-Treatment (1-3 sessions)

If you’re planning on working with an individual therapist, you'll begin meeting with your therapist on a weekly schedule. The duration of our work together will depend on the specifics of your situation. 

If you’re planning on attending our multi-family skills group, we recommend that you participate in 2-3 individual sessions in advance of joining the group. In these sessions, your therapist will prepare you and your child for the skills group and develop the necessary rapport to support you individually, if needed, during the skills course.

Treatment

Individual Therapy (weekly)

Individual therapy starts as soon as possible after you and your teen commits to the program. The initial sessions will include additional assessment after which a treatment plan will be provided. 

The goal of individual therapy is to work on the primary issues that have been identified in the treatment plan, to maintain the client’s motivation and commitment to the treatment, and to provide individual support for skills use. 

Skills Group (weekly)

Once the assessment process is complete and a basic foundation has been laid during individual therapy, you can begin attending the multi-family skills group. This is a small psychoeducational learning group that meets for 90 to 120 minutes (depending on whether a break is needed) weekly. Groups typically include 8 to 14 participants. The skills group continues for approximately 7 months and is led by a therapist and an associate. Sessions combine lecture, discussion, role-playing, and practice exercises in order to teach the following skill modules:

• Mindfulness: teaches participants how to focus the mind, direct attention, and how to non-judgmentally observe and describe what they are feeling and thinking at the moment. These skills can help teens develop a more stable sense of who they are, and can help reduce reactivity to painful thoughts and emotions.

• Distress tolerance: targets impulsivity by teaching how to effectively distract and soothe themselves while considering the pros and cons of their actions. These skills typically replace problem behaviors such as emotional outbursts, cutting classes, self-inflicted cutting, physical fights, and using alcohol or drugs.

• Emotion regulation: addresses extreme emotional sensitivity, rapid mood changes, and other unregulated moods such as chronic depression, anxiety, or hostility. Examples of specific skills include learning to identify and label emotions, learning how to increase positive moods, and learning how to make yourself less vulnerable to negative moods.

• Interpersonal Effectiveness: addresses difficulties in maintaining consistent and rewarding relationships by teaching skills such as how to ask for what you want, how to say no in a gentle yet effective manner, and how to maintain your sense of self-respect and independence in the face of peer pressure.

• Walking the Middle Path: targets extreme, rigid, or non-balanced thinking and behaviors among teens and their caregivers. These skills involve learning about common areas of conflict in relationships and reducing the conflict by learning methods of behavior change as well as methods of validation and acceptance.

Recommended Reading

Recommended

A card game that helps children (and their parents) practice DBT skills.