A Look Inside the DBT Therapy Course
"The goal of DBT is to help people find the path to getting out of hell."
-Marsha Linehan (DBT Founder)
Why DBT?
Persistent issues with BPD, anxiety, depression etc often arise because the skills a person uses to cope with the intense emotion associated with mental health issues are either ineffective or are not self-serving. Meaning if this is an issue for you, you have a skills deficit in emotional regulation.
This doesn't mean you are bad or worse than anyone. It just means you need some guidance on how to deal with your emotions.
The skills you learn in this DBT course take you through proven methods to allow YOU to be in control of you and not your emotions.
You will learn to live in the now, disconnect judgement from thoughts and emotions, learn to tolerate emotional pain and improve your interpersonal relationships through communication strategies.
DBT focuses on striking a balance between acceptance and change. What seem to be opposing forces are actually agents of powerful behavioural change. Two modules are focused on acceptance and two modules are focused on change.
About the course instructor
My mum asked me to send her a photo of my situation to make sure it wasn't a complete horrorshow. This was a few days after being handcuffed and brought into hospital against my will. I was constantly in and out of psychiatric hospitals for years and my emotions were completely in control of my life.
After I got on the right medication I was left struggling with the trauma of years of poor health, scary situations from the hospitals and not knowing how to deal with my anxiety and emotions.
My psychiatrist enrolled me in a DBT course that the hospital ran over 6 months. After just a couple of weeks of learning DBT, I slowly noticed I was already much more in control of my thoughts and emotions. I started going for days then weeks without my thoughts and emotions ruining my day. Since finishing the course I have been the most stable I have been in years.
I will take you from being at the mercy of your stress, anxiety, depression, BPD emotions, [insert the issue] to being the ruler of your mind through the skills in this workbook or your money back.
This course has all the skills I learned in that 6-month course. I have broken it down into an easy to understand examples and with printable worksheets. I spent thousands of dollars learning these skills so you don’t have to.
Course outline
Module 1 - Mindfulness: The first part of DBT is to learn to be present, sit with your thoughts and notice them without judgement or getting held hostage by them. This is the foundation of DBT.
Module 2 - Distress Tolerance: Once you have practised your mindfulness skills you will next learn how to respond to distress and negative emotions in a healthy way. We cannot avoid these types of emotions and situations but we can learn to control our response to them. Once you learn to make healthy decisions in painful or stressful situations this will go a long way in stopping your emotions from controlling you.
Module 3 - Emotional Regulation: In the third module you will work on regulating your emotions. This is done by understanding the functions of your emotions and working with tools that are specifically designed to manage negative or overwhelming emotions.
Module 4 - Interpersonal Skills: The last part of the course is focused on interpersonal relationships. Make people in your life feel heard and validated. Learn to make yourself feel heard and validated and learn how to navigate conflict in a healthy way. These skills will make your interpersonal relationships deeper and longer lasting (if you want them to be).
Some of the skills you will have when you finish the course:
- be more present
- be non-judgemental towards thoughts
- not let thoughts control your emotions
- sit with distress
- respond to distress in a healthy way
- be more in control of your emotions
- have the tools to regulate your emotions
- make people feel heard and validated
- make yourself feel heard and validated
- have the tools to navigate conflict
A Look Inside the DBT Therapy Course
Course Curriculum
Course Timeline
The course units are released every 10 days. This is designed to stop you from rushing ahead and not giving each unit enough time to practice the skills that you need.
Ideally, you should take 1 month per unit.
Day 1-10
You practice mindfulness and the exercises provided on a consistent basis and you are getting proficient at it. You can dabble in other modules but you need to grasp the first module.
Day 10-20
You continue mindfulness practice and you start learning distress tolerance.
Day 20-30
You build on your other skills and you start to incorporate emotional regulation skills. At this stage, you should be noticing considerable gains in your inner world.
Day 30+
You continue using your other tools but you focus on practising your interpersonal communication exercises. Like mindfulness, it will feel weird at first but it just takes a bit of practice.
This is not a crisis intervention. If you or someone you know is in crisis please call your ambulance service or mental health hotline.