Hurricane Sandy Update

CCDBT will be closed today, Monday, 10/29, and tomorrow, Tuesday, 10/30, due to Hurricane Sandy.  All groups and individual therapy sessions will be canceled.  Check the blog again to see our status for Wednesday.  Hope everyone stays safe.

This Week in Adult DBT Group...

This week in Adult DBT group we reviewed Self-Soothing skills and taughter Improve the Moment skills.  IMPROVE the moment stands for using Imagery (imagining relaxing scenes), Meaning (finding some meaning in the pain), Prayer (opening your heart to a supreme being), Relaxation (relaxing your muscles), One thing in the moment (focusing your entire attention on what you are doing right now), take a brief Vacation (taking a quick break from a difficult situation), and Encouragement (cheerleading yourself).  The homework is to practice using one IMPROVE the moment skill during the week when you feel negative emotions.

This Week in Adolescent and Family Group...

This week in Adolescent and Family DBT group, we reviewed the Three States of Mind (Emotion mind, Reasonable mind, and Wise mind) and taught the What skills.  The What skills have to do with what you can do when you "hit the pause button" of mindfulness.  Mindfulness is an active skill, not passive; therefore when you "hit the pause button" of mindfulness, you can Observe, Describe and Participate.  Observe means to just notice your experience, for example, watching your thoughts and feelings come and go like clouds in the sky.  Describe means to words on your experience, such as, "I feel anxious right now."  Participate means to throw yourself fully into an experience, without being self-conscious.  For example, playing baseball without worrying if you are holding the baseball bat correctly.  The homework for this week is to use one What skill to help get into Wise Mind.

This week in Adult DBT group...

This week in Adult DBT group we began the Distress Tolerance module.  This module helps us to cope with painful feelings and urges, as pain is a part of life and can't always be avoided.  The skill we learned this week was the DISTRACT with ACCEPTS skill.  This skill suggests that when confronted with painful feelings and urges, we distract ourselves with Activities, Contributing to others, Comparisons, other Emotions, Pushing away, other Thoughts, and other Sensations. 

This week in Adolescent and Family group...

This week in our Adolescent and Family group we are reviewing the Middle Path module.  The Middle Path module helps us specifically with navigating adolescent-family dilemmas by using dialectics and validation.  Dialectics is a way of viewing the world in which there is more than one way to see a problem.  Often when families get into a conflict, they go to extremes.  Dialectics helps us to try and find a middle path that honors both sides of a dilemma.  Validation can also help us in a conflict by communicating to another person that their thoughts or feelings make sense and are understandable.  Validation also helps to decrease the emotional intensity of a situation. 

ISITDBT 2012 Conference

We are excited to announce that CCDBT's own Dr. Adam Payne is the program chair for this year's International Society for the Improvement and Teaching of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (ISITDBT) conference on November 15th in National Harbor, MD.  Check out more information on the conference here. We hope to see you there!