Dialectical Behaviour Therapy
January 2017
Dialectical Behavioral Therapy: DBT Group
Group therapy sessions including skills training in Mindfulness, Distress Tolerance, Emotional Regulation, and Interpersonal Effectiveness
Find out about this highly-effective therapy and how it can help you transform your reality into a "life worth living".
Has Your Life Become a Struggle?
Dialectical Behaviour Therapy: A Skills-Based Therapy that Works!
Your life may not be easy right now; it may even feel like it’s been spinning out of control. You may be struggling with substance abuse or binge eating. You may be so filled with despair or anxiety that you can’t see a way out. Your moods may be so persistent or intense that, at times, you actually can’t bear it any longer.
And these very issues may be wreaking havoc with your relationships. Either you’re having difficulty establishing meaningful connections or there’s continual conflict and drama within your personal life. You want to experience a “life worth living,” but you can’t imagine that ever materializing.
Things are not working out as planned, and you end up putting yourself down at every opportunity.
You’ve thought about making changes, but you just don’t know how.
There has to be another way.
Here is a Way Out of Your Suffering
Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) is a way out of personal suffering. You’ll discover how to tune into your e-motions in your body, identify the feeling (shame, guilt, fear) and find new mindful ways of coping. This way, with kind awareness you will be able to respond differently to life events that in the past triggered self-destructive patterns like substance abuse, emotional reactivity, self-criticism, or relentless worry.
DBT will help you recognize your triggers, old beliefs and behaviors to choose a different path. And you’ll be able to stay on that path through an intensive curriculum of time-tested skills that will keep you strong and centered.
You’ll be set free from the shame, guilt, depression, and anxiety inherent in your dysfunctional behaviours. You will finally start to feel better about yourself.
You’ll develop flexibility and invite change. You will begin to live life as it was meant to be lived. Breaking unhealthy behavior and thought patterns from the past, you’ll begin to look forward to each new day, feeling able to cope both with life’s challenge and joys. Give yourself the gift of this healing group. YOU DESERVE IT! 🙂
Gina Vanderham: A Skilled DBT Therapist Who Can Help You Create a Better Life
Gina Vanderham is a highly-trained and experienced Dialectical Behaviour therapist. She has a warm, collaborative, and non-judgemental style that will assist you in achieving your established goals. Gina has assisted countless individuals in breaking free from depression, anxiety, trauma, self-harm, eating disorders, and addiction.
Not only is Gina an exemplary DBT therapist, but she also makes frequent use of the skills and techniques herself. As a recovering addict/alcoholic/co-dependent of 27 years, she has firsthand knowledge of the journey to health and healing.
Gina doesn’t just talk the talk, she walks the walk.
Edgewood DBT Group: Twelve Week Program
The twelve week program provides you with DBT basic training in a group session format. You’ll learn invaluable skills to promote self-acceptance and positive life changes. In twelve short weeks, you’ll have the skill set to turn your life around.
Group therapy provides additional benefits. First, you realize you are not alone. Second, you get to practice relationship skills in a safe environment. Third, a greater number of people can offer you support.
The sessions run alternate Tuesday evenings so that you can more easily integrate and practice learned material before the subsequent meeting. That means you will have homework!
The greater effort you expend in understanding and practising DBT skills, the more positive changes you can expect to manifest in your life.
DBT: A Skills-based Therapy That Works
DBT involves the balance between acceptance and change. It is a skills-based therapy that works. You discover how to accept yourself and your life through skills training in mindfulness and distress tolerance. Then, you learn how to move forward and make positive changes through the strategies of emotional regulation and interpersonal effectiveness.
Core Mindfulness
Mindfulness training requires that you tune into yourself on a daily basis. You learn to stand back and objectively assess your emotions and your environment. You develop the skill of observing rather than blindly reacting. Judgement and blame no longer form part of your vocabulary.
You cultivate a wise mind—the bridge between your emotions and rational thought. Emotional triggers are no longer able to pull you into a cycle of self-destructive behaviour because you can recognize them and pause.
Distress Tolerance
And once you pause to feel the pain enlisted by the emotional trigger, Distress Tolerance techniques teach you how to withstand this pain without making matters worse.
Rather than launching into a self-destructive frenzy or a full-on emotional vent, you learn a host of alternative coping strategies such as self-soothing and radical acceptance, relaxation, and prayer.
Emotional Regulation
The Emotional Regulation skills module teaches you how to identify emotions, decrease your vulnerability to emotions, and change your emotions through a series of worksheets, assignments, and mnemonics.
For example ABC reminds us to Accumulate positive experiences (thus buffering the impact of negative events), Build mastery (to create a positive self-image), and Cope ahead of time with emotional situations (thereby providing a dress rehearsal for potential triggers long before they happen).
Interpersonal Effectiveness
Finally, Interpersonal Effectiveness strategies help you develop and maintain healthy relationships. You find out how to establish relationships, get your needs met, say no effectively, and end unhealthy interactions.
You also discover how to enhance mutual feelings of self-respect in any interchange, thereby augmenting your personal value and positive self-regard.
12-Week Group Learning Outcomes
After the twelve-week DBT training session, you will be able to do the following:
- Self-monitor your emotions on a daily basis
- Reduce judgements of yourself and others
- Stay focused on the present
- Develop self-acceptance and self-compassion
- Improve coping skills to better manage stress and crises
- Identify and express emotions better
- Prioritize activities that give you pleasure
- Set goals and work towards achieving them
- Communicate more effectively
- Maintain healthy boundaries in relationships
- Develop more fulfilling relationships
- Increase self-esteem
- Enhance overall well-being and zest for life
With Gina’s assistance, you’ll gain mastery of important skills so that, with practice, they quickly become second nature. DBT training helps you create a life.
REGISTER NOW
Where: Edgewood Health Network, 1525 West 7th Avenue, Vancouver, BC V6J 1S1
When: Tuesday evenings, 6:30pm -8:30pm (January 24, February 7, February 21, March 7, March 21, and April 4, 2017)
INVESTMENT: $504 for twelve weeks of group ($20 off for referring a friend) or $85 drop in fee
Pay here now
Potential Concerns
I don’t want to be in a group. I’m too nervous.
Gina: Many of my clients find that this worry dispels when they come to their first group session. While participating, they find that others, like themselves, struggle with the same issues. This can result in newfound friendships and supportive relationships within the group. Most importantly, it helps you feel like you are not alone.
I’ve tried therapy before and it didn’t work.
Gina: Have you tried DBT? The program is different from typical talk therapy. Have you ever had the experience of speaking with a therapist and not receiving any tools or help from them? This group is ALL tools! It’s a psycho-educational skills-based program, reinforced with assignments and discussion. After learning each skill or tool, you are assigned homework. When you return, you’ll have the opportunity to discuss your experiences and gain additional feedback. The DBT program will teach you skills that will enhance your quality of life for years to come. And remember the research—DBT works!
Register Now
Where: Edgewood Health Network, 1525 West 7th Avenue, Vancouver, BC V6J 1S1
When: Tuesday evenings, 6:30pm -8:30pm (January 24, February 7, February 21, March 7, March 21, and April 4, 2017)
INVESTMENT: $504 for twelve weeks of group ($20 off for referring a friend) or $85 drop in fee
Pay here now
Call the Edgewood Health Network to reserve your spot now.
Call: 604-734-1100.
Email: evas@edgewood.ca
Got Questions?
Please contact Gina to find out whether this is the right course for you.
Call 604-733-7428.
I have never felt comfortable doing group therapy; however, upon Gina’s recommendation I signed up for the 6 week DBT group.
Although difficult for me to open up at first, the discussions and sharing with the group provided validation of my feeling; the struggles i have in succumbing those feelings in not letting them take control of me and understanding why those feelings seemed bigger than life.
The theory and homework was very helpful and beneficial. I was amazed at how many words described different feelings. Following through on what precipitated certain feelings and how those feelings manifested was a great methodical process that will help me better understand why my feelings are the way they are and why I react in certain ways. Understanding how to be mindful and live in a mindful way has become my anchor even though at times that anchor is far away BUT i know it is there and that makes it so much easier for me to swim back to.
I felt very comfortable with Gina, a patient, gentle and very comforting person.
~ September 2016 DBT group participant.
This course provided some profound insight into some of the emotional regulation issues with which I’ve struggled in the past. The skills I gained from this course have started a journey towards a wiser, more grounded self, and provided me with the building blocks for the resilience I so desperately needed to regain after several years of struggle. Thank you, Gina!
