Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) Course

Lesson 1 • DBT Versus Standard CBT

Contrasts DBT's acceptance strategies, team consultation, and skills training with traditional CBT protocols. Clarifies when DBT is the preferred intervention.

Lesson 2 • Biosocial Theory of Emotion

Explains biological sensitivity plus invalidating environments as the origin of pervasive emotion dysregulation. Links etiology directly to treatment targets.

Lesson 3 • Dialectical Philosophy in Practice

Introduces dialectics as the synthesis of opposing truths, centering acceptance and change. Practitioners learn to hold tension without collapsing into one pole.

Lesson 1 • Consultation Team

Presents the therapist consultation team as DBT therapy for the therapist, preventing burnout and drift. Outlines agreements that govern team functioning.

Lesson 2 • Skills Training Group

Describes the psychoeducational group format that teaches the four DBT skill modules. Differentiates the group leader's role from the individual therapist's role.

Lesson 3 • Phone Coaching

Defines between-session coaching calls for skills generalization and relationship repair after conflict. Establishes boundaries that prevent coaching from becoming therapy.

Lesson 4 • Individual Therapy Mode

Covers the weekly individual session's role in targeting life-threatening, therapy-interfering, and quality-of-life behaviors. Establishes the therapist as the primary change agent.

Lesson 1 • Missing Links Analysis

Addresses homework non-completion by identifying whether the client lacked knowledge, motivation, or opportunity. Directs the therapist to the correct intervention type.

Lesson 2 • DBT Target Hierarchy Explained

Defines the four-level hierarchy: life-threatening, therapy-interfering, quality-of-life, and skills deficits. Teaches practitioners to sequence targets without deviation.

Lesson 3 • Diary Card Use and Review

Explains how the diary card tracks urges, emotions, skill use, and target behaviors between sessions. Demonstrates efficient review that informs session agenda-setting.

Lesson 4 • Behavioral Chain Analysis

Teaches step-by-step mapping of antecedents, links, and consequences for a target behavior. Produces the data needed to select precise intervention points.

Lesson 1 • How Skills: Non-Judgmentally, One-Mindfully, Effectively

Covers the three qualities that define how mindfulness is practiced in DBT. Distinguishes effectiveness from approval or agreement.

Lesson 2 • Teaching Mindfulness in Groups

Provides facilitation strategies for leading mindfulness exercises with diverse and dysregulated clients. Addresses trauma-sensitive modifications for group delivery.

Lesson 3 • What Skills: Observe, Describe, Participate

Teaches the three observing, describing, and participating skills as the content of mindful attention. Clients learn to notice experience without immediately reacting.

Lesson 1 • Reality Acceptance Skills

Covers willingness versus willfulness and turning the mind as ongoing acceptance practices. Connects these skills to reducing suffering caused by fighting reality.

Lesson 2 • Radical Acceptance

Defines radical acceptance as full acknowledgment of reality without approval or resignation. Distinguishes it from tolerance, approval, and giving up.

Lesson 3 • TIPP Skills in Depth

Examines temperature, intense exercise, paced breathing, and progressive relaxation as rapid physiological regulators. Teaches correct sequencing for maximum effect.

Lesson 4 • Crisis Survival Skills Overview

Introduces TIPP, ACCEPTS, self-soothe, and IMPROVE as short-term crisis tools. Frames them as bridges to problem-solving, not permanent coping strategies.

Lesson 1 • Building Positive Experiences

Teaches short-term pleasant events and long-term value-based goals as antidotes to chronic negative emotion. Addresses avoidance of positive experiences in dysregulated clients.

Lesson 2 • Reducing Vulnerability: PLEASE Skills

Covers physical illness treatment, balanced eating, avoiding mood-altering substances, sleep, and exercise as vulnerability reducers. Establishes lifestyle foundations for emotional stability.

Lesson 3 • Opposite Action

Explains acting opposite to emotion action urges when the emotion is unjustified or ineffective. Provides emotion-specific opposite actions for fear, shame, anger, and sadness.

Lesson 4 • Check the Facts

Guides clients to evaluate whether emotions fit the facts of a situation before acting. Integrates cognitive appraisal into DBT's behavioral framework.

Lesson 1 • Factors Affecting Interpersonal Effectiveness

Examines DIME factors—desires, intensity, mastery, and environment—that determine skill intensity. Teaches clients to calibrate assertiveness to context.

Lesson 2 • GIVE for Relationship Effectiveness

Covers gentle, interested, validate, and easy manner as skills for protecting relationships during conflict. Balances assertiveness with relational care.

Lesson 3 • Building and Ending Relationships

Covers skills for finding new relationships, deepening existing ones, and ending harmful ones. Addresses the interpersonal deficits common in emotion dysregulation.

Lesson 4 • DEAR MAN for Objective Effectiveness

Teaches the seven-step DEAR MAN skill for asking for what one needs or saying no effectively. Emphasizes keeping the objective without damaging the relationship.

Lesson 1 • Stylistic Strategies: Reciprocal and Irreverent

Contrasts warm, responsive reciprocal communication with unexpected, off-beat irreverent communication. Teaches when each style breaks impasses and re-engages clients.

Lesson 2 • Validation Strategies Levels 1–6

Teaches the six levels of validation from active listening to radical genuineness. Practitioners learn to match validation level to client need and context.

Lesson 3 • Integrating Acceptance and Change

Demonstrates how to weave validation and behavioral strategies within a single session. Prevents the common error of defaulting to one pole under pressure.

Lesson 4 • Commitment Strategies

Covers devil's advocate, foot-in-the-door, door-in-the-face, and freedom-to-choose strategies for eliciting and strengthening commitment. Addresses ambivalence without coercion.