​Austin DBT Groups

The DBT Skills Group provides a structured environment where individuals with anxiety can feel safe to talk about themselves, how their anxiety shows up, and experience a sense of belonging as they are with other group members who have similar struggles.   Jennifer has been leading DBT Skills group for almost two decades and she has seen that suffering with anxiety is probably the most common reason why individuals will seek help.  Anxiety can be caused by:  past trauma, a relationship breakup, being in a life transition, job loss, marital conflict and tension, being in a new situation that is triggering fear of failure (i.e. a new job, or school), and parenting issues.    Some individuals will even report having constant feelings of anxiety and being in flight or fight and want help improving the quality of their lives.   Here are the specific ways that the modules in DBT help an individual with anxiety symptoms: 

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Mindfulness:  these skills help individuals with anxiety symptoms to learn how to observe and describe their emotions and sensations without judgment so that they are more able to work through the anxiety instead of allowing it to overtake them.   This module helps individuals to put words to describe the thoughts behind the anxiety and to explore if these thoughts are grounded in rational thinking or if it is more emotion minded thinking.   Also, this module helps to observe how the anxiety is showing up in bodily symptoms so that by gathering this information, one is more able to intervene and use Distress Tolerance skills to lower the intensity of the anxiety.   

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Interpersonal Effectiveness:  it is common that individuals with anxiety have difficulty being assertive and may possess myths about speaking up (i.e. "What if I come across as stupid?", "What if the other person gets mad at me?").  Therefore, the skills taught in this module are meant to help individuals identify the barriers that prevent them from being effective in relationships and to learn the concrete skills to be assertive, set boundaries, maintain their self-respect, and even engage with difficult people and difficult conversations.  Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is incorporated in this module to challenge negative thinking patterns.   

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Emotion Regulation:  this module focuses on getting to the root issues underlying the anxiety and gaining more confidence in working through these stressors despite the anxiety.  It could be a relationship issue, work stress, school stress, family dynamics, or social anxiety.    These skills are crucial, as lack of confidence in coping with these stressors and the anxiety surrounding it can leave one feeling stuck and depressed.    Also, this module helps individuals to identify the thoughts behind the anxiety and teaches the coping skills to use based on if the anxiety is valid or not valid or maybe even out of proportion to the actual facts.    Emotion Regulation also teaches a set of four weeks of skills that are just focused on helping individuals be less vulnerable to anxiety and depression. The idea is that we can do things daily to help ourselves be more resilient in fighting against negative emotions.     

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Distress Tolerance:  this module addresses the skills individuals suffering with anxiety need to calm their nervous system.   These acceptance based skills not only focus on how to stay in the moment and tolerate uncomfortable emotions, but how to intervene for oneself so that one does not shut down, have a panic attack, or go to a self-destructive behavior.