Comprehensive Dialectical Behaviour Therapy in Kitchener Waterloo
What Is Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT)?
Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) was developed by Marsha Linehan in the late1980’s and involves learning specific skills to overcome emotional dysregulation. In working the skills, individuals can alter outcomes and create different results.
DBT skills help those who are searching to improve their abilities in several ways: in becoming more mindful of what is happening in the current moment, regulating emotional states by learning how to change and become less vulnerable to emotions, moving through distressing situations without making the next moment worse, and setting boundaries by knowing how to ask for needs and say no to what is not wanted.
Kristan Graham-Seymour
My name is Kristan Graham-Seymour. I am a Registered Social Worker and psychotherapist in Waterloo, Ontario with over 25 years of experience in social work and have been in private practice for over 10 years. As a fully trained Dialectical Behaviour Therapist, I specialize in providing private skills training and therapy for individuals with emotion dysregulation issues and for their families.
For the Family
What is Next – Beyond DBT
In the Community
The families of those participating in DBT play an important role in the overall success of this therapy. When the skills being taught are understood by everyone in the household, all family members are on the same page and this unity has improved the overall results and in a much faster timeframe.
When family members are able to learn skills alongside the individual, they can offer effective support especially around validation. Validation of the individual’s emotions, despite behaviours, can always be heard, acknowledged and understood by family members. This can go a very far way in reducing an individual’s state of dysregulation.
Other skills that allow for mindful and effective communication to find a ‘middle path’ can help family members to relate to one another. The result being that family members feel more connected overall.
In the Community
What is Next – Beyond DBT
In the Community
We are dedicated to bringing DBT skills training to the schools, hospitals and other areas of the community. Emotional health is not just an individual or family concern – it involves everyone. We feel strongly about the opportunity for improved mental health if more people within our community were aware of mental health issues in general and how DBT can help.
Just imagine the impact that this awareness could have in our hospitals, walk-in clinics, family physician offices.
If you are aware of an opportunity within your community, please feel free to contact our office.
What is Next – Beyond DBT
What is Next – Beyond DBT
What is Next – Beyond DBT
I have learned in the last 12 years of clinical work that emotionally dysregulated individuals needing DBT tend to be very sensitive overall. They require deeper understanding, empathy and validation to overcome emotional obstacles. With this in mind, I have been able to create a new working model for a pathway beyond DBT once the skills have been learned.
This new model looks at the individual holistically from a bio-psycho-social-spiritual perspective, teaching an understanding of those components and creating an agent for change in each of those aspects through awareness. This new model is being applied successfully for individuals who, through DBT skills, have become more emotionally regulated and are searching for more.