Emotion Regulation Group with Alayo & Medina

DBT Skills for Emotional Regulation Group (15 weeks)
This group focuses on skills to support emotion regulation; it may be an appropriate place to start for those who have no DBT skills training to date, and/or who would like to more fully internalize previous skills training through a queer, anti-oppressive lens. DBT effectively treats borderline personality disorder (BPD), eating disorders, treatment-resistant depression, and a variety of other disorders. Marsha Linehan developed the DBT skills training approach with the overall goal of helping “individuals change behavioral, emotional, thinking, and interpersonal patterns associated with problems in living” (Linehan, 2014). At the core of DBT is the dialectic of acceptance and change; two modules are taught for each side of this dialectic. This group delivers skills that can help us: decrease our suffering, increase our happiness, increase our sense of freedom, increase our attentional control, experience reality without painful interpretations/assumptions, find balance in our lives, survive crises, understand our emotions, decrease our unjustified and ineffective emotions, decrease our vulnerability to negative emotions, increase our resilience, get us what we want, and improve our relationships.

Skills covered include:

Mindfulness (3 weeks)—wise mind, observe, describe, participate, one-mindfully, nonjudgmentally, effectively

Distress Tolerance (4 weeks)—changing body chemistry, distracting, self-soothing, improving the moment, radical acceptance, turning the mind, willingness, half-smiling, mindfulness of current thoughts

Emotional Regulation (7 weeks)—what emotions do, model for describing emotions, accumulating positive emotions, building mastery, coping ahead, mindfulness of current emotions, opposite action, problem solving, taking care of your mind by taking care of your body

Interpersonal Effectiveness (1 week)—objectives effectiveness, relationship effectiveness, self-respect effectiveness, validation

You are eligible for this group if:

• You’ve attended a DBT skills group for at least 6 months, covering all 4 modules (mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness).

• You’ve gone a minimum of 6 months without engaging in target behaviors (such as self-harm, suicide threats, suicide preparations, suicide attempts, or substance abuse) before joining the group.

• You’ve gone a minimum of 6 months without psychiatric hospitalization before joining the group.

• You’re attending regular, individual therapy.

• You're willing to lead a mindfulness practice for fellow participants.

• You're willing to attend group on a regular basis (missing no more than 2 meetings every 8 weeks).

• You're willing to avoid coming to group under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

• You're willing to practice skills outside of group.

• You're willing to keep information obtained during group (including the names of fellow participants) strictly confidential.

• You're willing to call/email providers ahead of time when you will arrive late or miss a meeting.

• You're willing to avoid private relationships with fellow group members.

• You're willing to pay your bill.

• You’re willing to assist peers in solving life problems.

• You’re willing to bring life problems to peers.


Fee: DBT groups have a tiered pricing structure ranging from $10 to $160 per week. Detailed information about the tiered pricing of DBT skills groups offered at our practice is on this page.

Note: If attending via Zoom, we require you to attend from a private space to preserve the confidentiality of fellow group members. Additionally, we ask that you have access to technology that allows you to: (A) see material (e.g., teaching slides, teaching videos, fellow members, etc.) on a screen; (B) listen to facilitators and participants; (C) participate with your camera on; and (D) participate with your microphone on.