Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is designed to help people with multiple disorders learn to effectively cope with painful emotions and increase behavioural control. This course will introduce you to the DBT model, its fundamental principles and core treatment strategies. Treating clients with multiple problems can be difficult and you’ll learn to keep your clients positively engaged and working toward their long-term goals. Through lectures, multimedia, role-play and discussion, you’ll emerge better equipped in your clinical work to effectively and compassionately respond to your clients.

This retreat offers innovative tools to cultivate presence and self-compassion. Together we will explore mindful drumming, photography and meditation as creative ways to activate wellbeing and joy, and to cultivate presence, resiliency and self-compassion. With presence and self-compassion, we can learn to develop greater trust in our ability to move through challenging transitions and daily life with greater ease, while feeling energized, calm, and centred.

If you already know the basics of Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), this two-day course will take you deeper into the theory behind it and its core treatment strategies. You’ll use in-depth chain analyses to better understand problems and plan your treatment approach. You’ll learn how to manage in-session problem behaviour, strengthen validation strategies and decrease polarization. You’ll acquire skills you can apply within a full DBT program or within other psychotherapeutic approaches, and emerge better equipped to help clients with multiple disorders.

Enhance your individual Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) practice with this hands-on course. You’ll get advanced training in problem analysis, case formulation and treatment design. You’ll work through real cases – including your own – and present clinical questions. Each three-hour session combines theory, practice and experiential exercises such as skills-modeling, role-playing and consultation. You’ll hone the DBT knowledge and skills you’ve already acquired to correctly analyze a client’s situation, design solutions that address their discomfort, increase validation and address issues that arise during treatment.

Offering compassionate care and teaching can be immensely rewarding, yet emotionally demanding for helping professionals, caregivers, and educators. Sustained attention and care of others, as a therapist, educator, parent or child of aging parents, without a balance of compassion and care for self, can lead to burn-out and exhaustion.