Let's start with some rules so that we can feel safe within our group.
Participants who join our group support each other and agree to:
a) Keep names of other participants and information obtained during sessions confidential.
b) Come to the group session on time and stay until the end.
c) Make every effort to practice skills between sessions.
d) Validate each other, avoid judging each other, and assume the best about each other.
e) Give helpful, noncritical feedback when asked.
f) Are willing to accept help from a person they ask.
Participants do not tempt others to engage in problem behaviors and:
a) Do not come to sessions under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
b) Do not discuss, inside or outside sessions, current or past problem behaviors that could be contagious to others.
Participants do not form confidential relationships with each other outside of skills training sessions and:
a) Do not start a private relationship that cannot be discussed in group.
b) Are not partners in risky behaviors, crime, or drug use.
It helps to have an agenda for the group but we can be flexible with it. The format will be:
a) The first 5 minutes for member introductions and a chance to say which DBT skill you would like to discuss. This can be a skill you have practiced successfully, one that you need help with, or one that you would like to know more about.
b) Followed by: 5 minutes of a mindfulness exercise to help focus us on the “here and now” experience of our group. These may be as described in the DBT Skills Manual or one of your own that you would like to contribute to the group.
c) Then, 5 minutes to agree an agenda for the rest of our group time.
(The remaining group time is divided equally between those group members who wish to discuss a skill, although this may occasionally overlap in the resulting discussion)
In total the group will run for 1 hour if there are up to 4 participants plus the facilitator.
The group will run for 2 hours if there are 5 to 8 participants plus the facilitator.
The group will still run if there is only one participant plus facilitator.
You should reserve two hours to attend the group.
DBT describes the following assumptions and we try to stick to these during our groups:
a) All people at any given point in time are doing the best they can.
b) People want to improve. The common characteristic of all people is that they want to improve their lives and be happy.
c) The fact that people are doing the best they can, and want to do even better, does not mean that these things are enough to solve the problem. People can work “smarter”.
d) People may not have caused all of our own problems, but they have to solve them anyway. They may have to change their own behavioral responses and alter their environment for their life to change.
e) New behavior has to be learned in all relevant contexts. New behavioral skills have to be practiced in the situations where the skills are needed, not just in the situation where the skills are first learned.
f) All behaviors (actions, thoughts, emotions) are caused. There is always a cause or set of causes for our actions, thoughts, and emotions, even if we do not know what the causes are.
g) Figuring out and changing the causes of behavior work better than judging and blaming. Judging and blaming are easier, but if we want to create change in the world, we have to change the chains of events that cause unwanted behaviors and events.