Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT)
Originally created to treat Borderline Personality, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) is a form of talk therapy performed with a trained specialist that focuses on decreasing unwanted or damaging behaviors/thinking patterns and increasing healthiness within relationships.
Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) can be performed in three ways:
- One-on-One: A trained therapist talks with the client and helps the client understand harmful behavioral responses – then helps the client replace the harmful behaviors with healthier responses.
- Group Sessions: Led by a trained therapist, the individuals within the group practice role-playing with one another to simulate real-life experiences in order to make healthier responses and reactions more natural.
- Digital Coaching: clients can follow up with DBT talk therapy via zoom, phone or any on-line platform. These sessions prove helpful when the client is in a crisis situation or needs immediate help with a behavior.
Each DBT therapeutic session has its own goals:
Therapists use the following points to help clients develop new response skills.
- Acceptance and change: Clients learn to accept and tolerate life circumstances and their own emotions. They will also develop skills that can help make positive changes in their behaviors and interactions of these life circumstances.
- Behavioral: Clients learn to analyze problems and destructive behavior patterns and replace them with more healthy and effective ones.
- Cognitive: Clients focus on changing the thoughts, beliefs, behaviors and actions that are not effective nor helpful.
- Collaboration: Clients learn to communicate effectively and work together as a team (therapist, group therapist, psychiatrist).
- Skill sets: Clients learn new skills to enhance capabilities.
- Support: Clients become encouraged to recognize positive strengths and attributes and develop their use.
Is DBT right for you? DBT is shown to be effective treatment for:
- Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
- Bipolar disorder
- Eating disorders (such as anorexia nervosa, binge eating disorder, and bulimia nervosa)
- Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD)
- Major depressive disorder (including treatment-resistant major depression and chronic depression)
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
- Substance use disorder
If you or a loved one could benefit from DBT for a mental health or substance use disorder, reach out to Water Gap Wellness. Our expert staff is trained to deliver DBT to individuals ages 18 through the aging adult. Water Gap Wellness offers an on-site psychiatrist daily, TWO private sessions weekly and group sessions daily. Masters-level counselors treat the individuals – not the specific diagnoses. They are trauma trained and seasoned in various forms of therapies, including DBT. Housing is provided by Water Gap Wellness Inn – situated on 130 acres of beautifully manicured property. and adjacent to the Appalachian Trail.
Water Gap Wellness is licensed by the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services and the Drug and Alcohol Programs of Pennsylvania. Additionally, Water Gap Wellness received the prestigious Gold Seal from the Joint Commission recognizing Water Gap Wellness as a “best in class” facility, fully compliant in all safety and programming methodologies. Water Gap Wellness also accepts private insurance. For more information and a confidential, free discussion with a friendly admissions counselor, please call our admissions line today at 1-833-949-4673. We’re here to help.
