DBT® Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets

“DBT skills are useful not only for individuals who suffer from persistent emotion regulation difficulties, but also for individuals in extreme circumstances and people who have ordinary problems. This updated manual provides the ‘flexibility within fidelity’ in teaching these skills that practitioners and treatment adopters need. New, improved, expanded, and much clearer skills--they’re all here! Skills trainers and their clients will benefit from Linehan and her colleagues’ decades of systematic research and time spent developing, testing, and refining these skills, empowering practitioners to confidently offer multiple ways of understanding and practicing new behavior. Experienced skills trainers will notice the evolved richness and depth, while the explanations and teaching points will provide new trainers and students with an excellent foundation for skills training with both adults and adolescents. Providing a solid evidence-based foundation for core clinical training curricula, the manual and accompanying volume of handouts and worksheets will be essential across the mental health disciplines."--André Ivanoff, PhD, Columbia University School of Social Work

"Linehan's pioneering work has guided many--myself included--to incorporate mindfulness into compassionate clinical care in a structured format. The second edition of Linehan's DBT skills training manual and the companion volume of handouts and worksheets reflect two additional decades of wisdom and innovation, further bolstering these indispensable resources."--Zindel V. Segal, PhD, Distinguished Professor of Psychology in Mood Disorders, University of Toronto-Scarborough, Canada

"Skills such as mindfulness, interpersonal effectiveness, emotion regulation, and distress tolerance are invaluable for those working to overcome complex problems. DBT offers an especially effective way to learn these skills. I highly recommend this book of worksheets and handouts and the companion manual for therapists."--Judith S. Beck, PhD, President, Beck Institute for Cognitive Behavior Therapy

“Along with Marsha Linehan’s customary and distinctive authority, zeal, and wisdom, her new editions offer more detail and specificity, and new clinical pearls. Even those who are already familiar with DBT will be impressed by the evidence of its maturation and expansion, while for those who are wanting to learn DBT, these books offer the organization, clarity, and readability that will make learning a pleasure.”--John Gunderson, MD, Director, Center for the Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder, McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School

"DBT is a proven evidence-based treatment that combines the best of our science with the knowledge and compassion of Marsha Linehan--an exceptional researcher and clinician whose innovative work has advanced the field and shifted many individuals from lives of suffering to lives of hope. These outstanding second editions offer guidance on how to implement DBT skills training, while providing the tools needed to deliver this state-of-the-art treatment. They will stand as the authoritative guides for teaching DBT skills, partnering with clients to build lives worth living, and helping us to address our national and international priorities of saving millions of lives lost to suicide worldwide. These 'must-have' books belong on the shelves of every clinician and will be valuable course texts."--Joan Rosenbaum Asarnow, PhD, Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles

"Since its introduction to the literature over two decades ago, Marsha M. Linehan's skills training manual has revolutionized the treatment of individuals with borderline personality disorder, and also the practice of psychotherapy in general. Now in a second edition, the manual and accompanying volume of handouts and worksheets provides clinicians, educators, students, and patients with a resource that can guide even novice clinicians to become more effective and knowledgeable in treating our field’s most challenging cases. Of interest to the psychoanalytically informed reader, the second edition has elaborated DBT’s attention to interpersonal concerns, with robust consideration of interpersonal dynamics replacing the approach to enhancing effectiveness presented in the prior edition."--Lois W. Choi-Kain, MD, MEd, Director, Gunderson Residence of McLean Hospital; Director, McLean Borderline Personality Disorders Training Institute; and Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School

“Marsha Linehan is a pioneering and well-respected researcher and clinician. Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) has become a therapy of choice for BPD since the publication of her first manual in 1993. DBT has been recommended in guidelines of the English National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE)….Ideal for therapists, trainers, and students, the manual can now show the extent to which theory is underpinned by research on outcomes, quoting studies conducted since the publication of the first edition. The research base now includes core skills training for a variety of disorders and not only for those with a diagnosis of BPD and suicide risk. This makes the manual relevant to therapists treating varied clinical and non-clinical populations. The skills for helping clients with emotion regulation and distress tolerance should be in the repertoire of every mental health practitioner and addictions worker. There is a wealth of material in these manuals, now that over 20 years the skills have been tried, tested and refined by Linehan and her colleagues and made accessible to all. Trainers will find that the teaching points in the training manual are clear, with more practical examples citedan excellent foundation for students. The rationale for emphasizing particular behavioral skills is given as well as an explanation of how to use the material with clients….The training skills manual, along with the handout and worksheet volume are valuable resources for practicing clinicians in the field of mental health and addictions, whether or not DBT is their main orientation.”

(Alcohol and Alcoholism 2015-05-01)

“This is an essential resource for clients learning dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) skills, and those who treat them….The book offers quick, easy access to all needed handouts or worksheets for building mindfulness, interpersonal effectiveness, emotion regulation, and distress tolerance skills….There is an astonishing array of material contained in this 400-plus page book….The ease with which these handouts will facilitate DBT makes it an essential part of treatment and extremely valuable for the nominal cost. *****"

(Doody's Review Service 2015-07-21)