Integrating Dialectical Behavior Therapy and Psychoanalytically Informed Clinical Work

This course will introduce students to theoretical and clinical elements of DBT. We will focus on learning to use DBT and on how to integrate it into psychodynamic and psychoanalytic treatment. We will also explore overlaps between DBT and Relational thinking as well as ways that these two quite different approaches to clinical work complement each other.

We will explore ways of understanding and working with multi-problem patients that draw from DBT and that while outside the usual parameters of psychoanalysis can greatly enhance therapeutic action. We will consider self-regulation skills, mindfulness, DBT validation and dialectical strategies and the incorporation into treatment of a world view drawn from Buddhism. We will additionally consider how to integrate DBT -related clinical structures into psychoanalytic work. Our focus will be both on the self-injuring and suicidal patients for whom DBT was originally designed, and on patients suffering with anxiety, depression, trauma, substance abuse, and difficulties with impulse control.

In class we will learn DBT interventions and techniques, discuss clinical cases and learn ways to move seamlessly between DBT and psychodynamic work. We will consider cases both from the instructor’s practice and from seminar participants’ clinical work. Additionally, there will be an experiential component to the class, as we practice mindfulness and other DBT skills together.

The readings are drawn from the standard texts in DBT, clinical papers on integration, and some psychoanalytic papers that expand our understanding of the patients under consideration Authors to be read include Linehan, Koerner, Little, Epstein and Lyons.

This course can be taken as a stand-alone course, or as a required part of NIP’s Certificate Program in Psychotherapy Integration. The course will be taught at NIP in eight seminar-style classes, each lasting one hour and fifty minutes. Class meetings are held on Mondays, April 7, 23, 28, May 5, 12, 19, June 2, 9, from 1:00 to 2:50pm.

Learning Objectives

The learning objectives include:

I. Understand the basic tenets of DBT and how they overlap with and differ from the basic tenets of Relational Psychoanalysis.

II. Learn to use a variety of DBT techniques, including distress tolerance skills, validation skills, and Mindfulness skills that target specific difficulties, including anxiety, depression, and impulse control.

III. Demonstrate skill in identifying when and how to integrate DBT techniques into psychoanalytic practice.

Continuing Education

This class is approved for 14.0 CE contact hours for psychologists, social workers, and licensed psychoanalysts:

The National Institute for the Psychotherapies is approved by the American Psychological Association to offer continuing education credits for psychologists. The National Institute for the Psychotherapies maintains responsibility for this program and its content.

The National Institute for the Psychotherapies is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers #SW-0018.

The National Institute for the Psychotherapies is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychoanalysts #Psyan-0004.

Personalized CE certificates will be emailed at the end of this event after completing and passing an online quiz and evaluation form. Attendance on all days is mandatory for CE credits.

Refunds, & Cancellation Policy

Cancellation requests made more than a week prior to the event will be given a full refund of registration fees. Refunds will not be granted for cancellation requests made within a week of the first day of the event or for no-shows on any of the days event take place.

Lisa Lyons, Ph. D. is on the faculties of the NYU Post-Doctoral Program in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy, the Stephen Mitchell Relational Study Center, the NIP Four Year Psychoanalytic Program and Program in Integrative Psychotherapy, and the Kyiv Institute of Relational Psychoanalysis. She directs a one year training program in the theory and practice of. Relational Psychoanalysis at the Stephen Mitchell Center, and is Co-Director of the Human Rights Work Group at the NYU Post-Doctoral Program. She has published and presented on Integrating Relational Psychoanalysis and Dialectical Behavior Therapy, the Intergenerational Transmission of Trauma, Analytic Love, her work with a young woman refugee from Afghanistan, War Trauma, and Psychoanalysis and Culture. She was trained in DBT by Dr. Marsha Linehan, and for six years directed the DBT program at Montefiore Medical Center. She is in private practice in New York and Teaneck, New Jersey.

Integrating Dialectical Behavior Therapy (Live, Online)