​Austin DBT Groups

DBT Skills Groups can help clients who struggle with symptoms of trauma and complex PTSD.   Common symptoms include:   feelings of detachment or disassociation, consistently being in a state of hypervigilance, being easily flooded, difficulty managing triggers, panic attacks, feeling of shame, difficulty trusting others, anger outbursts, and fawning behaviors.   The DBT Skills in group help client to learn concrete coping skills in feeling more confident managing their symptoms.   Here are some examples of how the modules address these symptoms:

​

Mindfulness:  these skills help individuals with trauma to identify their specific thoughts, bodily sensations,  and feelings when triggered and to learn how to observe and accept this without judgment.   Being able to accept and feel the feelings helps individuals in the process of validating and understanding their emotions which enables them to go through the healing process.    It is common that individuals with trauma minimize, judge, or push their emotions away which then causes more internal suffering.  

​

Interpersonal Effectiveness:  these skills help individuals to learn new ways to connect and communicate with others in a way that maintains their self-respect, helps them to achieve their objectives, and maintain the relationship.   Individuals with trauma often lack skills to identifying their own needs and hence communicating their needs to others around them.  This module enables individuals to feel more centered in who they are, their priorities, and how to verbalize this without shutting down or people pleasing behaviors.  

​

Emotion Regulation:  these skills help individuals with symptoms of trauma to identify their triggers, label the thoughts,  emotions and urges that come with these triggers, and then to work through it in healthy ways.  Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is incorporated in this module to help individuals identify myths and thought distortions that may have been internalized from the past and to learn ways to challenge these myths with more realistic ways to think.   This module also enables individuals to learn skills to create positive emotions and experiences rather than allowing past issues to stay stuck in negative mood states or thinking patterns. 

​

Distress Tolerance:  this module can help those are prone to impulsive behaviors, shutting down, or avoidance to learn how to accept and feel negative emotions by using specific skills to lower the intensity of their negative emotions when triggered. The goal of this module is to "not make matters worst" by going to self-destructive behaviors.   Individuals learn techniques to ground themselves and tolerate tough times without resorting to behaviors that just makes their situation worst.