1-1 DBT Skills Training
Breaking the one-size-fits all mold.
At Sawtelle Psychotherapy Group, we believe every client deserves therapy that is both uniquely crafted for them AND firmly rooted in empirically supported methods.
Individual Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) Skills Training sessions provide a tailored, personalized, and structured opportunity to learn skills outside of the traditional DBT group format.
Maybe you’re unsure about joining a group, looking for a more confidential and discreet space to learn the skills, or have a learning style that isn’t conducive to the group format.
1-1 DBT Skills Training sessions allow us to move at your pace, focus on the situations that matter most in your life, and adapt each skill so it feels practical, relevant, and accessible to apply in real time.
DBT skills are life skills. We’re excited to share them with you.
DBT on Your Terms
Dialectical Behavioral Therapy is a structured, skill-based, and highly researched modality designed to address issues of emotional dysregulation, difficulty being in the present moment, interpersonal challenges, and challenges tolerating distress.
At Sawtelle Psychotherapy Group, we believe the DBT skills are life skills that everyone would benefit from knowing and using. That the cost of doing a comprehensive DBT program shouldn’t prohibit you from accessing these tools. That some people learn better 1-1. That there are many different ways to deliver the skills.
That you have a say in how you do DBT.
What are the DBT skills, anyway?
The DBT skills fall into four categories: Mindfulness, Distress Tolerance, Emotion Regulation, and Interpersonal Effectiveness.
-
Skills to help you become more aware of and stay in the present moment. Expand your understanding of mindfulness beyond “meditating.”
-
Skills to tolerate pain in difficult situations without fighting it and without creating more suffering, because we know we can do better than “just breathe.”
-
Skills to reduce your vulnerability to unwanted emotions and respond to the emotions you want to change.
-
Skills that help you clarify what is most important and values-aligned in your interactions and take action on meeting those goals.
Dialectics are the name of the game.
A dialectic is the idea that two opposing truths can exist exist at the same time.
DBT is built on the balance of two seemingly opposite yet coexisting concepts: acceptance and change.
Your skills training curriculum will provide you with the tools to enter into the paradox of changing what’s changeable and radically accepting the rest.
Who Benefits From 1-1 DBT Skills Training Sessions
You may be struggling with…
Managing big and difficult emotions
Emotional suppression
Being in the present moment and dissociation
Invalidation from the people around you
Understanding why you feel certain feelings, and so intensely
Black-and-white and inflexible thinking
Unhealthy relationship patterns
Feeling like you go from 0-100
Difficulty setting boundaries
Uncertainty about your values
Feeling like you always say the “wrong” thing
Accepting the cards you’ve been dealt
Feeling like you are in a continuous cycle of crisis
While we believe everyone can benefit from learning the DBT skills, here’s who we typically work with:
Through Individual DBT Skills Training Sessions in West Los Angeles and virtually in California, New York, Florida, and Vermont, we help clients build the skillset they need to live their most authentic, values-aligned lives.
You may identify as a…
Teen, adult, parent, or couple
Client with an existing primary therapist who wants to add Individualized DBT Skills Training to their treatment plan
New client who isn’t interested in doing individual therapy and prefers the structure of 1-1 skills training sessions
New client who feels like you need more support than once a week therapy
Private or high-profile person in need of a confidential and discreet way to learn the DBT skills
Client who tried Comprehensive DBT and did not find it worked for you
Learner whose learning style and needs can’t be accommodated in a group format
Why a 1-1 approach?
Sawtelle Psychotherapy Group founder Brooke Schwartz, LCSW attended the Columbia University School of Social Work where she was accepted into a year-long Dialectical Behavior Therapy Training Program and Lab, the only program of its kind in a school of social work.
She received intensive training in DBT through Behavioral Tech and provided comprehensive DBT during her clinical internship at the NYU Child Study Center.
Brooke went on to practice comprehensive DBT for several years, providing individual DBT therapy, running hundreds of DBT groups (including an advanced group for DBT graduates), offering phone coaching in between sessions (at one point 24/7!), and attending the weekly DBT consultation team meeting.
When Brooke stopped practicing comprehensive DBT and started her private practice, she met many new clients who didn’t fit into the traditional DBT mold yet said it was transformative to learn the skills in a 1-1 format.
She realized there was a major gap in services for those who are not “typical” DBT clients; they aren’t necessarily suicidal or self-harming, diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, or in need of more intensive therapy. Brooke believes that DBT skills are really just life skills, and that offering 1-1 DBT Skills Training sessions gives far more clients—ones who may never even have learned what DBT is—the opportunity to build an essential, personalized skillset that allows them to navigate the world more effectively and with the least amount of suffering.