“Skills for a Life Worth Living”

–An Adolescent DBT Skills Group in Issaquah

Are powerful emotions getting in the way of someone you love? Are ADD or ADHD disrupting your teen’s school and family life?

We currently have a Skills Group meeting on Wednesday evenings, from 7 to 9 pm. Adolescents ranging in age from 14 to 19 are welcome by appointment and interview.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is a comprehensive treatment approach for people whose emotions create major problems in their lives (and perhaps in the lives of people around them). These emotions may be experienced and expressed in a destructive way (as in angry outbursts and even violence, or depression and immobility), or attempted to be avoided by behaviors such as suicide attempts, substance abuse, eating disorders, or impulsive actions that turn out to create more problems.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy has been shown by research studies to be the most effective way of helping depressed and suicidal clients build lives they want to live, and with many other kinds of problems involving intense emotions. At the heart of DBT are skills for regulating emotion, tolerating distress until solutions can be found, improving inter-personal relationships, and using mindfulness to find inner peace and stability.

Although DBT Skills can be taught individually, the research protocol involves teaching them in DBT Skills Groups, which are much more like classes than traditional therapy groups.

A DBT Skills Group is currently meeting at The Third Wave Behavioral Center of Issaquah. New members are welcome!

The group is led by Michael Baugh, LICSW, who is Advanced Intensively Trained in DBT.  He has been leading these groups for nearly 10 years. For more information, please call Michael at 415.793.3604, or visit thirdwavebehavioral.com.