Individual Therapy
Dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT)
DBT is an evidence-based treatment for individuals who struggle with emotion dysregulation, impulsive/risky behaviors, unstable sense of self, and difficulties establishing and maintaining healthy relationships. The treatment includes three elements. In a weekly group session, clients are taught new skills to cultivate mindfulness, tolerate distress, regulate emotions, and manage relationships. In weekly individual sessions, the therapist helps the client apply skills to work toward individual treatment goals. When indicated, the treatment also includes between session phone coaching to help the individual experiment with new behaviors when they are most in need.
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Radically open dialectical behavioral therapy (RO DBT)
RO DBT is a treatment designed to help individuals who avoid distress by over-relying on efforts to control their experience. Overcontrolled coping may appear as high self-criticism, compulsive fixing or planning, rumination, social isolation, emotional suppression, rigidity in thinking and behavior, and fear of negative evaluation, among other things. RO DBT focuses on helping overcontrolled individuals develop more openness, receptivity, spontaneity, flexibility, and connectedness with others. RO-DBT includes both weekly group-based skills training and individual therapy.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
CBT is a specific treatment, however, the term is also commonly used to refer to a wide array of manualized treatments. This wider collection of cognitive behavioral therapies (CBTs) have been rigorously tested in clinical trials and found to be effective in connection with many disorders, including:
Depressive Disorders
Anxiety Disorders
Obsessive-compulsive and Related Disorders
Trauma- And Stressor-Related Disorders (e.g., PTSD)
Substance-Related and Addictive Disorders
Eating Disorders
Sleep-Wake Disorders (e.g., insomnia)
Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder
Each treatment protocol leverages specific principles of change designed to target a disorder’s symptoms. As a group, CBTs share one unifying principle -- that thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are inter-related. CBTs are present focused, goal-oriented, structured treatments that begin by helping people identify unhelpful patterns of thought and behavior. Therapists then teach clients new skills so that they may change beliefs and behaviors that maintain distress over time.
CBTs may be delivered in individual or group formats.
Couples Therapy
Emotionally focused therapy (EFT) for couples
EFT is an evidence-based treatment that draws from attachment theory to help individuals and couples establish secure connections. EFT has been proven to be effective in treating a wide range of issues from relationship distress to individual trauma and anxiety.
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DBT for High Conflict Couples
DBT for High Conflict Couples is an adaptation of DBT designed to target interaction patterns within a couple that maintain distress. Treatment begins by identifying behavior patterns that reliably result in conflict. The pair then learns to de-escalate conflict by implementing both self-regulation skills and effective, direct communication strategies. Treatment helps couples achieve more validating interactions as each partners learn to balance realistic demands for change with acceptance.
Family Therapy
DBT for Children, Adolescents, and Families
DBT for Children (DBT-C) and Adolescents (DBT-A) are adaptations of DBT that help families manage youth who struggle with emotion dysregulation or risky behavior. When targeting the needs of youth, DBT focuses on both an individual and the family system within which they exist. Treatment provides both kids and parents the skills needed to manage one’s own emotions while responding to the needs of others. With practice, the minor learns to reduce problem behavior while the family learns to reduce conflict and increase connection.
Group Therapy
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DBT Skills Group: mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness skills.
RO DBT Skills Group: skills that lead to more openness and social connectedness.
Consultation Servies
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I offer consultation services to clinicians who practice DBT.
