AUTHORED BY: ANNA GLEZER, MD

Discovering Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)

Dialectical Behavior Therapy is a skills-based treatment that can be helpful to anyone who struggles with emotional regulation, interpersonal effectiveness, and distress tolerance. It can be helpful if you struggle with depression, anxiety, trauma symptoms, and more. The groups focus on tools you can use immediately in your daily life, and there is a lot of education provided by the trained group leader. This is in contrast to many groups with which you may be familiar that involve personal disclosures and conversations. 

Why are you offering it?

DBT is a valuable skills building therapy that I recommend to many of my patients. Because of its effectiveness, it is growing in popularity. Unfortunately, many of the DBT centers have extensive waiting lists and large group settings. We are now offering DBT at Women's Wellness Psychiatry to ensure our patients receive the most timely and effective form of treatment, and at a cost more affordable than many centers across California. 

What is a typical session like?

Each 90 minute virtual session starts with a review of the prior week's homework, a mindfulness practice, and then is followed by teaching of new material and a discussion of how to apply the new skills in your personal life. 

Who else will be with me in class? 

Each group will be a small cohort of 4-8 individuals, all meeting virtually, who are all struggling with emotional reactivity, interpersonal challenges, and navigating intense feelings. You will learn the tools and techniques from the group leader, and then you and your peers will apply them to real-life scenarios. 

Can’t I just work on these things with my therapist 1:1? What is the advantage of doing this in a group setting?

DBT is a unique style of psychotherapy. Many clinicians are not specifically trained in this modality. While individual therapy is complementary to the group skills work, it cannot take its place. This makes DBT a great tool to add to your clinician toolkit as it can work well with the other psychological work you are already doing. 

The groups focus on tools you can use immediately in your daily life, and there is a lot of education provided by the trained group leader. It is therefore more like a class than a traditional psychotherapy group. In fact, DBT is a style of therapy that was developed with the weekly group setting in mind, and the group format is usually recommended for most everyone interested in DBT. 

Who is the instructor? 

Dr. Altman is a seasoned and experienced DBT therapist. She has led multiple DBT groups as well as worked 1:1 with patients. She has experience also in women's mental health, reproductive mental health, and trauma. 

Timing:

Each DBT Skills Group series is 8 weeks long and consists of 2 weeks of mindfulness and 6 weeks of focus on emotional regulation, interpersonal effectiveness, or distress tolerance.  Each session is once per week for 90 minutes.

There is usually about 15 minutes of homework assigned between sessions. You can register at any time during the 2 weeks of mindfulness at the start of each series. Every 6 months, the full course is repeated. You receive a workbook to guide you through the sessions. 

Dates for next series, focused on Interpersonal Effectiveness [all have a 3pm PT start time]:

1. November 14th, 2024

2. November 21st, 2024

3. December 5th, 2024

4. December 12th, 2024

5. December 19th, 2024

6. January 2nd, 2025

7. January 9th, 2025

8. January 16th. 2025

Cost:

If you are a current WWP patient, the cost is for the skills group alone - 8 weeks for $950, which is substantially below the California average of $150-250/group session, equating to ~$1,600 for a program like this.

Please note — if you are not yet a patient of our clinic, in addition to the cost of the group, you will need to complete a comprehensive intake appointment with one of the team's psychiatrists. This will include a full diagnostic assessment and discussion of a comprehensive treatment plan. You are then welcome to continue working with the psychiatric team, or to share those recommendations with your outside treaters.

*** Signing up for DBT Skills Group: ***

Please submit the short form below to sign up for our next group, starting November 14th and running for 8 consecutive weeks (all on Thursdays at 3pm). You may also email Support@AnnaGlezerMD.com to sign up.