What Do We Treat?
Clients who seek treatment at our center have a variety of struggles and problems.
These are some of the issues we help you address:
- Self – injury
- Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)
- Impulsive behaviors
- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
- Grief and loss
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Bipolar Disorder
- Substance abuse/dependence
- Eating disorders or related problems
- Health / medical problems
- Relationship problems
- Parenting issues
How to Get Started
Explore
The first step to getting started is to browse through our website. Think about whether this program feels like it could be helpful in terms of what you’re struggling with and what you need.
Request an Appointment
Next, review the bios and locations/specialties of our providers, contact who seems to be the best fit for you, and request an initial intake. All of our providers conduct intakes for our DBT program. Our providers can be contacted via phone or email.
Complete Paperwork
If you are interested in individual DBT and/or group DBT skills training, the next step is to fill out the assessment paperwork that will be emailed to you upon your request. After the initial intake, the provider working with you will discuss recommendations for treatment.
Wait For a Start Date
The wait time for getting started in the DBT program may vary. At times, there may be a waiting period to enter our program, and at other times you may be able to enter right away.
Recommendation
If our program is not an appropriate fit for your situation, your intake provider will suggest an appropriate referral.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), is a modification of standard cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). In the development of DBT, Marsha Linehan, Ph.D. found that using standard CBT was ineffective in helping many individuals with intense emotion dysregulation to make changes in their lives.
Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT)
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is one of the most well-researched psychotherapies in practice today. It was developed in the 1960’s by Dr. Aaron T Beck, as a treatment for people experiencing depression. To date, there is research evidence documenting its effectiveness for a wide range of disorders, including major depressive disorder, social anxiety disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and insomnia, to name a few. In contrast to some other types of therapy, CBT is generally a time limited, “present-focused” therapy that aims to help you approach the real life problems that you are facing in a systematic way and discover and implement solutions that will result in a more values driven life.
CBT is based on the theory that the way we interrupt the events in our lives influences how we feel and in turn, how we behave. Unfortunately however, there are times that our interpretations of events might be biased based on our past learning history, the intensity of our emotions or environmental factors. Thus, the goal of CBT is to gain insight into the types of biases that we are individually prone to, and learn how to make our interpretations more accurate and helpful, which can impact the intensity of our emotions. At times, learning strategies to accept the presence of distressing thoughts can be helpful. Another goal of CBT is to gain insight into maladaptive behavior patterns that may be contributing to or reinforcing distressing emotions and teach more adaptive behaviors that will facilitate coping.
Prolonged Exposure (PE)
After a traumatic event; some individuals experience symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Common symptoms of PTSD include recurring memories or nightmares of the traumatic event(s), sleeplessness, avoidance of things that may remind you of the trauma, loss of interest, or feeling numb, anger, and irritability. Prolonged Exposure therapy (PE) is an evidenced-based cognitive behavioral treatment program. Numerous well-controlled research studies over the past two decades have shown that PE significantly reduces the symptoms of PTSD as well as co-morbid symptoms of depression, anger and anxiety. PE helps you decrease distress about your trauma by helping you safely approach trauma-related thoughts, feelings, and situations that you have been avoiding due to the distress they cause. Repeated exposure to these thoughts, feelings, and situations facilitates processing the trauma and reduces their emotional impact. This treatment generally consists of eight to fifteen weekly or twice weekly sessions. Most sessions last about one and a half hours each.