Dialectical Behavior Therapy 

---

For Adults, Adolescents, and Families
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is a highly effective, evidence-based direct form of therapy developed by Marsha Linehan, Ph.D. DBT emphasizes working toward the life you want to live by integrating acceptance and change with cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) and mindfulness. ​

In addition to our comprehensive, fully adherent 12 month program, we offer:
-DBT Informed Social Skills Group
-Beyond DBT Advanced Skills Training
-DBT Life Skills Training Course

---

This approach is essential for adults and adolescents who have difficulty regulating or managing intense emotions. DBT validates the difficulty of having painful and intense emotions while also supporting your desire to make important behavioral changes. 
​

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) was originally developed to treat chronically suicidal individuals diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD) and it is now recognized as the gold standard psychological treatment for this population. In addition, research has shown that it is effective in treating a wide range of other disorders such as:
•  Substance Dependence and Addiction
•  Depression
•  Bipolar Disorder
•  Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) 
​•  Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder
•  Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and other anxiety disorders 
•  Anorexia, Bulimia, and Binge Eating Disorder

Village Counseling Services, P.C. offers the longest running comprehensive Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) program in central New Jersey. To uphold the integrity of the DBT treatment model, we feature a structured and selective intake process and all members of our DBT Consultation Team have been intensively trained.  

We provide our clients with intensive, individualized treatment by maintaining a small therapist-to-client ratio, and by offering DBT skills training in small groups.  Our DBT program provides services to adolescents 12 to 18, adults, and family members.

Through our program in DBT program you will learn to: 
•  Control your emotions, instead of your emotions controlling you
•  Reduce and then eliminate life-threatening behaviors 
•  Decrease behaviors that destroy the quality of your life and build a life worth living 
•  Focus on the present moment 
•  Notice judgments and practice acceptance of reality
•  Preserve worthwhile relationships and end destructive ones
•  Tolerate distress and get “unstuck” from extreme views
•  Experience feelings without dissociating or avoiding life 
•  Build an ordinary life and solve ordinary problems
•  Reach a more stable sense of self
•  Move from incompleteness to completeness 
•  Feel more connected

What are the components of DBT?
At Village Counseling Services, P.C. we offer the unmodified form of DBT in which there are four components: skills training group, individual treatment, DBT phone coaching, and consultation team.

• DBT skills training group is focused on enhancing our clients' capabilities by teaching them behavioral skills. The group is run like a class where the group leader teaches the skills and assigns homework for our clients to practice using the skills in their everyday lives. Groups meet on a weekly basis and it takes 24 weeks to get through the full skills curriculum, which is often repeated to create a 1-year program. 

We offer Adult, Adolescent, Parent/Family and Advanced Skills Training Groups. Click here to see our weekly schedule.

• DBT individual therapy is focused on enhancing our client’s motivation and helping them to apply the skills to specific challenges and events in their lives. Individual therapy takes place once a week for as long as the client is in therapy and runs concurrently with skills groups.

• DBT phone coaching is focused on providing our clients with in-the-moment coaching on how to use skills to effectively cope with difficult situations that arise in their everyday lives. Our clients can call their individual therapist between sessions to receive coaching at the times when they need help the most.

• DBT therapist consultation team is intended to be therapy for the therapists and to support our DBT providers in their work with people who often have severe, complex, difficult-to-treat disorders. The consultation team is designed to help our therapists stay motivated and competent so they can provide the best treatment possible. Teams typically meet weekly and are composed of individual therapists and group leaders who share responsibility for each client's care. Each member of our team has been intensively trained.

​What skills are taught in DBT?
DBT includes four sets of behavioral skills.

Mindfulness: 
The practice of being fully aware and present in this one moment.

Distress Tolerance: 
How to tolerate pain in difficult situations that cannot be changed, and control impulsive behaviors so that you don’t make a situation or your emotions feel more intense.

Interpersonal Effectiveness: 
How to ask for what you want and say no more effectively while maintaining self-respect and relationships with others.

Emotion Regulation: 
How to change emotions that you want to change when we don't like how we are feeling and how to problem solve more effectively.

​How effective is DBT?
Research has shown DBT to be effective in reducing suicidal behavior, non-suicidal self-injury, psychiatric hospitalization, treatment dropout, substance use, anger, and depression and improving social and global functioning. 

​Learn more about DBT For Adults by watching this video about Linehan's Biosocial Theory, by NowMattersNow:

​Watch What is Dialectical Behavior Therapy for Adolescents by Dr. Esme Shaller:

Read how DBT can save lives in this Washington Post article.

Click here to learn more about the DBT treatment approach.

How to Make an Appointment
Complete an intake online or call 609-844-0452, extension 713 to schedule an intake. We accept most insurance.

See a list of all our services and programs.