The key to flexible, skillful decision making in dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) lies in understanding the connections between moment-to-moment clinical strategies and core principles. This lucid guide from leading DBT authority Charles R. Swenson offers clinicians a compass for navigating challenging clinical situations and moving therapy forward--even when change seems impossible. Numerous vivid case examples illustrate DBT in action and show how to use skills and strategies that flow directly from the fundamental paradigms of acceptance, change, and dialectics. Clinicians gain knowledge and confidence for meeting the complex needs of each client while implementing DBT with fidelity.

Filled with vivid clinical vignettes and step-by-step descriptions, this book demonstrates the nuts and bolts of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT). DBT is expressly designed for--and shown to be effective with--clients with serious, multiple problems and a history of treatment failure. The book provides an accessible introduction to DBT while enabling therapists of any orientation to integrate elements of this evidence-based approach into their work with emotionally dysregulated clients. Experienced DBT clinician and trainer Kelly Koerner clearly explains how to formulate individual cases; prioritize treatment goals; and implement a skillfully orchestrated blend of behavioral change strategies, validation strategies, and dialectical strategies. See also Dialectical Behavior Therapy in Clinical Practice, Second Edition: Applications across Disorders and Settings, edited by Linda A. Dimeff, Shireen L. Rizvi, and Kelly Koerner, which presents exemplary DBT programs for specific clinical problems and populations.

This book delves into problem solving, one of the core components of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT). The authors are leading DBT trainers who elucidate the therapy's principles of behavior change and use case examples to illustrate their effective application. Particular attention is given to common pitfalls that therapists encounter in analyzing target behaviors--for example, a suicide attempt or an episode of bingeing and purging--and selecting and implementing appropriate solutions. Guidelines are provided for successfully implementing the full range of DBT problem-solving strategies, including skills training, stimulus control and exposure, cognitive restructuring, and contingency management.

Informed by the principles and practices of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), this book presents skills training guidelines specifically designed for participants with cognitive challenges. Clinicians learn how to teach core emotion regulation and adaptive coping skills in a framework that promotes motivation and mastery for all learners, and that helps clients apply what they have learned in daily life. The book features ideas for scaffolding learning, a sample 12-week group curriculum that can also be used in individual skills training, and numerous practical tools, including 150 reproducible handouts and worksheets. The large-size format facilitates photocopying. Purchasers also get access to a Web page where they can download and print the reproducible materials.

Originally developed for the treatment of borderline personality disorder, dialectical behavior therapy, or DBT, has rapidly become one of the most popular and most effective treatments for all mental health conditions rooted in out-of-control emotions. However, there are limited resources for psychologists seeking to use DBT skills with individual clients. In the tradition of ACT Made Simple, DBT Made Simple provides clinicians with everything they need to know to start using DBT in the therapy room. The first part of this book briefly covers the theory and research behind DBT and explains how DBT differs from traditional cognitive behavioral therapy approaches. The second part focuses on strategies professionals can use in individual client sessions, while the third section teaches the four skills modules that form the backbone of DBT: core mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness. The book includes handouts, case examples, and example therapist-client dialogue—everything clinicians need to equip their clients with these effective and life-changing skills.

Based on over twenty years of research, radically open dialectical behavior therapy (RO DBT) is a breakthrough, transdiagnostic approach for helping people suffering from extremely difficult-to-treat emotional overcontrol (OC) disorders, such as anorexia nervosa, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and treatment-resistant depression. Written by the founder of RO DBT, Thomas Lynch, this comprehensive volume outlines the core theories of RO DBT, and provides a framework for implementing RO DBT in individual therapy. While traditional dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) has shown tremendous success in treating people with emotion dysregulation, there have been few resources available for treating those with overcontrol disorders. OC has been linked to social isolation, aloof and distant relationships, cognitive rigidity, risk aversion, a strong need for structure, inhibited emotional expression, and hyper-perfectionism. And yet—perhaps due to the high value our society places on the capacity to delay gratification and inhibit public displays of destructive emotions and impulses—problems linked with OC have received little attention or been misunderstood. Indeed, people with OC are often considered highly successful by others, even as they suffer silently and alone. RO DBT is based on the premise that psychological well-being involves the confluence of three factors: receptivity, flexibility, and social-connectedness. RO DBT addresses each of these important factors, and is the first treatment in the world to prioritize social-signaling as the primary mechanism of change based on a transdiagnostic, neuroregulatory model linking the communicative function of human emotions to the establishment of social connectedness and well-being. As such, RO DBT is an invaluable resource for treating an array of disorders that center around overcontrol and a lack of social connectedness—such as anorexia nervosa, chronic depression, postpartum depression, treatment-resistant anxiety disorders, autism spectrum disorders, as well as personality disorders such as avoidant, dependent, obsessive-compulsive, and paranoid personality disorder. Written for mental health professionals, professors, or simply those interested in behavioral health, this seminal book—along with its companion, The Skills Training Manual for Radically Open Dialectical Behavior Therapy (available separately)—provides everything you need to understand and implement this exciting new treatment in individual therapy—including theory, history, research, ongoing studies, clinical examples, and future directions.

Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is a specific type of cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy developed in the late 1980s by psychologist Marsha M. Linehan to help better treat borderline personality disorder. Since its development, it has also been used for the treatment of other kinds of mental health disorders. The Oxford Handbook of DBT charts the development of DBT from its early inception to the current cutting edge state of knowledge about both the theoretical underpinnings of the treatment and its clinical application across a range of disorders and adaptations to new clinical groups. Experts in the treatment address the current state of the evidence with respect to the efficacy of the treatment, its effectiveness in routine clinical practice and central issues in the clinical and programmatic implementation of the treatment. In sum this volume provides a desk reference for clinicians and academics keen to understand the origins and current state of the science, and the art, of DBT.