Group Therapy

Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) Skills Training

Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) helps people who experience unstable and intense negative emotions. DBT Skills Training Group uses a range of strategies for you to learn coping skills that improve the regulation of your emotions and behaviours. You are taught how to identify and label intense emotions and how to manage your feelings with behavioral strategies. There are four skills modules within the group: emotion regulation, distress tolerance, mindfulness and interpersonal effectiveness. The completion of all skills modules takes 24 weeks.

Family and Friends Group

The Family and Friends Group: Tools for Building Emotional Resilience is a 12-week group designed for those in relationships with individuals diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder or challenged with emotional dysregulation. Through education and skills training, group members learn how to manage their relationships and support their own and their loved one’s well-being. The DBT skills promote resilience and effective coping. These skills include both acceptance and change strategies. The skills are designed to remedy specific caretaking and relationship challenges. The group format provides the opportunity to learn from others with shared experiences Weekly two-hour sessions consist of lectures, skills training, practice exercises and discussion.

Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) Graduate Group

The Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) Graduate Group is geared towards participants who have successfully completed at least six months of DBT skills training (i.e., mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness). The group has three main objectives:

To build a life worth living. Participants will come up with a long-term goal, participate in weekly check-ins to increase accountability and receive support in overcoming barriers.
To consolidate core DBT skill use. Each participant will provide a brief presentation, followed by collaborative validation and/or problem solving of areas in which they are stuck or avoiding.
To introduce advanced DBT skills. These skills are meant to help participants live a meaningful life, feel fulfilled and trust themselves.

This group is ideal for individuals who have a good basis in emotional regulation and want to progress beyond the foundational DBT skills and strengthen their resources. This group is not suitable for participants actively struggling with high-risk behaviours including suicidal or self-harm behaviour, frequent use of crisis services, severe addictions or significant eating disordered behaviour. We encourage such participants to complete, or repeat, the DBT Skills Training Group prior to considering the DBT Graduate Group.

Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC)

Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) is an empirically-supported eight-week training program that cultivates skills for self-compassion. Based on the ground-breaking research of Kristin Neff and the clinical expertise of Christopher Germer, MSC teaches core principles and practices that enable participants to respond to difficult moments in their lives with kindness, care and understanding.

The three key components of self-compassion are self-kindness, a sense of common humanity, and balanced mindful awareness. Kindness opens your heart to suffering so you can give yourself what you need. Common humanity opens you to your essential interrelatedness so that you know you aren't alone. And mindfulness opens you to the present moment so you can accept your experience with greater ease.

Therapeutic Rhythm and Mindfulness (TRM)

TRM™ is an integrative approach that combines group drumming, mindfulness and emotion-focused awareness to cultivate presence and resilience. It increases positivity and connection while reducing distress and mood disturbance. TRM™ helps people with a variety of physical and emotional challenges such as cancer, terminal illness, chronic pain, depression and anxiety. It is also for health care providers, educators and others in the helping professions for cultivating presence and self-care.

Mindful Practices for Stress Reduction (MPSR)(TRM)

Mindful Practices for Stress Reduction is an eight-week program that teaches essential skills for practicing mindfulness meditation.

Whether you are new to mindfulness and looking for a strong foundation to get started or you are already practicing and want to deepen your understanding and skills, this group is for you. You will receive graduated, progressive training in both formal meditation and informal pausing practices.

The goal of the MPSR program is to learn the skills of mindfulness mediation and how to transfer them into everyday living.