Carroll County Youth Service Bureau (CCYSB) is pleased to announce that eight (8) licensed therapists completed the sixty (60) hours of training in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) (basic, intermediate, and skills-group) in 2017. This cohort is currently working toward full certification which is awarded by Behavioral Tech: The Marsha Linehan Training Institute. DBT is a cognitive behavioral treatment that is now recognized as a research-based psychological treatment for a wide range of issues: substance dependence, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), borderline personality disorder, suicidal behavior, and eating disorders.
What is DBT?
The term “dialectical” means a synthesis or integration of opposites. The primary dialectic within DBT is between the seemingly opposite strategies of acceptance and change. For example, DBT therapists accept clients as they are while also acknowledging that they need to change to reach their goals. In addition, the skills and strategies taught in DBT are balanced in terms of acceptance and change. Clients who commit to participating in DBT will learn skills to help accept certain aspects of their lives while working on changing other aspects. These skills consist of: mindfulness skills, distress tolerance skills, emotion regulation skills, and interpersonal effectiveness skills. The overarching goal of DBT is providing challenging clients with the skills to have a “life worth living”.
