Total 12 CE credits for attending both days.

6 CE credits each day. 

DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) has proven effective in the treatment of adults and teens with a wide variety of clinical conditions that involve emotion dysregulation, including borderline personality disorder, PTSD, substance use disorders, eating disorders, anxiety, depression, and others. Research suggests that the “active therapeutic ingredient” in DBT is skills training, such as skills for enhancing awareness, strengthening attention, regulating emotions, accepting painful realities, tolerating emotional crises, and developing stronger relationships.

While skills are taught in groups according to the manual, getting clients to actually use them when they need them is a task of individual therapy and coaching.  In this highly practical workshop, appropriate for experienced DBT practitioners and those without DBT training, Dr. Swenson will teach and demonstrate strategies for bringing DBT skills into therapy sessions, including ways to motivate the client, bring skills alive in compelling ways, and ensure generalization of skills to the client’s natural environment.  He will teach and demonstrate how to build “mini-treatment plans” in sessions with a client, portable frameworks in which DBT skills serve as replacement behaviors for problematic thoughts, emotions, and actions.  He will present a five-step protocol for coaching skills in brief interactions.

Dr. Swenson will draw from his extensive clinical experience, using videotaped session segments that specifically demonstrate how to weave skills into sessions, and conducting role plays with willing audience members to illustrate the techniques.  The most important DBT skills will be taught in the context of this advanced application workshop.  Dr. Swenson will allow ample time to deal with specific questions from participants about how to incorporate DBT skills into their therapies.