DBT Training with Dr. Shelley McMain

DBT Certificate Program

Dr. Shelley McMain, in partnership with the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies, leads a Certificate Program in Dialectical Behavior Therapy. This training is for those wanting to learn DBT at an intensive level to better implement the treatment model in their practice. This Certificate Program offers two foundation courses followed by three specialized courses. While this five-course program is designed to train clinicians seeking advanced learning in DBT, you may also take courses individually to concentrate on specific topics. Each course provides rigorous content, applied training exercises, and other learning activities. The specific learning objectives of the DBT Certificate Program are as follows:

Explain DBT’s biosocial theory, theoretical underpinnings and treatment principles]
Create and employ DBT treatment plans for clients based on a DBT-informed case formulation]
Implement a range of DBT strategies including validation, problem assessment and solution analysis, dialectics, structural, and motivational strategies]
Apply the skills from DBT skills modules: Core Mindfulness; Interpersonal Effectiveness; Emotion Regulation; and Distress Tolerance]
Plan and execute a DBT Consultation Team and deploy DBT techniques to constantly improve team functioning.

Required Courses:

The Basics (Foundational Training Part 1)
Beyond The Basics (Foundational Training Part 2)
DBT: Individual Therapy
Skills Training
Consultation Team

Dialectical Behavior Therapy for Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

This course, offered through the Centre for MindBody Health over a four-week period, provides a comprehensive examination of DBT-PTSD based on a psycho-social model. Dysfunctional behaviors are understood as strategies to avoid or escape from trauma-associated primary emotions like powerlessness, threat, anxiety, disgust, humiliation, or sexual arousal. The model proposes that these emotions are corroborated by dysfunctional cognitive assumptions and dysfunctional behaviors such as self-injury, suicidal ideation, dissociation or intoxication. It further proposes that problematic secondary emotions such as shame, guilt, self-hatred, or chronic anger develop over time into problematic self-concepts which impair quality of life.

DBT-PTSD primarily aims to help patients: a. Revise their fear of trauma-associated primary emotions, b. Question whether secondary emotions like guilt and shame fit the facts, and c. Radically accept the fact of trauma in their lives to establish a life worth living. The treatment program is designed to be delivered in a residential program (three-months) or in an outpatient setting (45 weeks).

This course provides comprehensive training in DBT-PTSD including a manual. The course also fulfills the prerequisite for enrolling in the Advanced DBT for Complex PTSD course that is offered alongside the foundational training course.

Learning Objectives

AT THE CONCLUSION OF THIS TRAINING, YOU’LL BE ABLE TO:

Describe the basic psycho-social and neuro-behavioral principles of complex PTSD
Implement the principles of DBT-PTSD within your clinical practice
Develop an individualized trauma model
Teach your client skills for dissociation, distress tolerance, and regulation of trauma-related emotions
Conduct in-sensu exposure
Help your clients create a life worth living

Advanced Dialectical Behavior Therapy for Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

This two-day case-based learning workshop focuses on Dialectical Behavior Therapy for Complex PTSD (DBT-PTSD). Through didactic learning and selected case presentations, the training addresses topics presenting the greatest challenges for participants.
DBT-PTSD is tailored to treat adult PTSD after childhood abuse, including those with borderline personality disorder (BPD). Most of these people show severe problems in emotion regulation, negative self-concept, dysfunctional memory processing and maladaptive social interaction. To target these core domains, DBT-PTSD merges multiple evidence-based elements: DBT principles, trauma-specific cognitive and exposure-based techniques, compassion focused interventions and behavior change procedures. DBT-PTSD is based on a psycho-social model. Typical dysfunctional behaviors can predominantly be understood as strategies to avoid or escape from trauma-associated primary emotions like powerlessness, threat, anxiety, disgust, humiliation or sexual arousal. Corroborated by dysfunctional cognitive assumptions, dysfunctional behaviors such as self-injury, suicidal ideation, dissociation, or intoxication and problematic secondary emotions such as shame, guilt, self-hatred, or chronic anger develop over time into problematic self-concepts that strongly impair quality of life. DBT-PTSD aims to help people: a) Revise their fear of trauma-associated primary emotions, b) Question whether secondary emotions like guilt and shame fit the facts, and c) Radically accept the fact of trauma in their lives in order to establish a life worth living.