Private DBT Therapy in London

Dialectical behaviour therapy gives you the tools to finally gain control of your emotions and reactions. It works to stop your suicidal tendencies, lower your trauma response, and raise your self respect. It does this by focussing on four key skills:

• core mindfulness (being able to stay present)
• interpersonal effectiveness (getting along with others)
• emotion modulation (controlling your emotions)
• distress tolerance (knowing how to not have a meltdown when facing stress).

DBT offers flexibility. When offered individually this can be agreed between the client and therapist, based on the client's specific needs. It could take anything from 10 weeks to over a year. A longer time period allows more opportunities for clients to practice the skills in real life situations.

Treatment at Harley Therapy involves one-to-one sessions, face to face or online, as well as some homework / tasks between sessions.

DBT is particularly effective if you experience:

• Intense emotional ups and downs
• Difficulty managing relationships
• Self-harm or suicidal thoughts
• Anxiety, depression, or trauma

DBT is not like other therapies where you just talk about your experiences, thoughts, and feelings. Instead, it's far more practical. You will complete worksheets from a DBT workbook, engage in skills practice, and prepare homework.

While DBT is often a group therapy, or offered in a blend of group work and one-on-one sessions, it can also work just as an individual therapy. During one-to-one therapy you will learn practical skills (emotional regulation, distress tolerance, interpersonal) in a safe and private environment, with more time to use personal life examples.

The DBT therapists here offer DBT therapy on a one-to-one basis.

Individual DBT offers a unique chance to test out and learn regulating skills in a contained therapeutic relationship. It is especially focused on helping clients to understand that destructive behaviours are rooted in attempts to manage intense and overwhelming emotions, and that there may be other, more constructive ways to deal with those emotions.

Individual DBT can also be flexible in terms of format - for example, therapist and client may agree that the client can make contact outside of the therapy hour in times of extreme stress so that the attempts to regulate/find new behavioural strategies can be walked through together.

Emphasis is on providing supportive, educative relationships, carefully contracted therapy agreement (e.g. boundaries around self-harm, contact outside of the therapeutic hour), skills learning and regulation/management of feelings rather than on historical root causes.

Accredited therapists: All DBT practitioners are highly trained and have over 10 years of experience supporting clients through complex emotional challenges.

Tailored to you: Your therapist adapts DBT to fit your unique needs and may draw from other helpful approaches.

A supportive approach: The therapists provide a safe, compassionate space to help you achieve lasting change.

Often seen as a 'form of CBT', it does use elements of cognitive behavioural therapy as it teaches you to manage the link between your thoughts and actions.

But it is also its own form of hybrid therapy that also draws on dialectical thinking (seeing from different and opposing perspectives), Zen Buddhism (with its key concept of staying present), and metaphorical thinking (viewing situations practically).

DBT and CBT both help patients to recognise and change unhelpful ways of thinking so they don't lead to unhelpful behaviours. But while CBT focuses on having balanced thoughts, DBT works more on acceptance, helping your accept thoughts as just thoughts and to not judge yourself for having negative thinking.

1. Mindfulness (learning to be in and accept the present moment)
2. Interpersonal effectiveness (how to relate to others in ways that mean you feel understood)
3. Distress tolerance (how to feel stress and accept difficult situations without lashing out or having a meltdown)
4. Emotion regulation (using techniques that mean your intense emotions don't lead to acting out).

Yes. Marsha Linehan, the creator of DBT, suffered from BPD herself and was institutionalised for her mental health issues. She acutely understood that it was hard to feel motivated to change when your sensitivity meant the very process of therapy left you feeling judged and invalidated. Dialectical behaviour therapy was created to fix this issue.