Neurodivergent Friendly DBT Skills Group

Thoughts like:

“I feel worthless” or “I am not good enough”

“The people in my life don’t understand me”

“I feel so different and isolated from others.”

“I can’t stop worrying and overthinking”

“I’m thinking about hurting myself”

“I don’t know how to control my emotions”

These thoughts and emotions may present themselves through:

– Engaging in unwanted, self-destructive, impulsive, or harmful behaviors

– Low self-esteem

– Difficulty in communicating with others or dissatisfaction in your relationships.

– Difficulty transitioning into a new stage of life and managing change

You might feel lonely, discouraged, unmotivated, and hopeless.

Neurodivergent-Friendly (ND) DBT Skills Training Group can help you make the changes you want and build the life you want.

Why join ND DBT Skills Training Group?

The goal of DBT Skills Group is to identify thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that contribute to our distress, and then change those thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, to lessen that distress. DBT is about balancing accepting what we cannot control and changing what we can. DBT was not created with neurodivergent individuals as the primary population, though the skills and concepts can be incredibly helpful for neurodivergent folks looking to make sustainable changes in their lives.

Neurodivergent-Friendly DBT group teaches the core DBT skills following an adapted curriculum that suits the unique experiences and needs of neurodivergent individuals. You will learn all the same DBT skills as a traditional DBT group with extra consideration to the challenges of living with neurodivergence. We aim to help you build a community with peers who can relate to your experiences and help support you in learning skills to achieve your personal goals. Studies have shown that this feedback and support has a huge benefit to one’s mental health, recovery and treatment.

We learn to…

Better identify, understand and regulate our emotions

Reduce behaviors such as self-harm or risk-taking and impulsive actions.

Better understand and accept ourselves as we are.

Address difficulties in our interpersonal relationships more effectively, to respect our own boundaries, and the boundaries of others.

Everyone enters a group for their own individual needs and reasons, but one thing is common among all of us: We are all doing our best and working to improve.

Unlike other therapy groups, DBT Skills Training Groups are centered around learning, improving, and practicing our DBT skills. Group is very structured and follows a curriculum so that we can really focus on honing our skills and figuring out how to implement them in our daily lives.

ND DBT Skills Group moves at a slower pace than our traditional DBT Groups. Research shows that ND clients often benefit from additional sessions in order to achieve sustainable and long-lasting therapeutic progress. Along with feedback from our own neurodivergent-identifying clients, we have expanded our ND skills group across 40-50 weeks to account for memory difficulties and allow more time for processing when learning new skills. We go at the pace that best accommodates the needs of members to ensure you feel confident and capable of using your DBT skills. Group is held virtually on a secure meeting platform for 1.5 hours with a short break midway through. ND DBT is also limited to 6 members to reduce the potential overwhelm of being in a larger group, which can be difficult for some neurodivergent individuals. In each meeting we will complete an activity that helps us understand or practice the skills together and discuss how we can use these skills outside of group: How we can personalize each skill to fit our individual needs, what situations would using skills be most beneficial, and how to troubleshoot any issues that get in the way of successfully using skills.

Additional adaptations to the curriculum include:

• ND-Friendly worksheets and powerpoints to limit overstimulation and improve processing.
• Simplified homework assignments that feel achievable.
• Psychoeducation about neurodivergence to help you better understand how your unique brain functions.
• In-depth discussions that apply DBT skills to common experiences of neurodivergent individuals, such as hyper and hyposensitivity, co-morbid conditions, difficulties with transitions and change, and executive functioning skills like organization, emotional control, and self-monitoring.

Our group leaders are also ready to collaborate with you on personalized accommodations that are within our power and ability to implement.

Research shows that completing two rounds of DBT group is most effective for long-term, sustainable change. The benefits of a second round include:

1. By the end of the first round, you’re often in a better mental space and more ready to put skills into practice.
2. Skills take repetition to master. In the first round, you learn them; in the second, you solidify your ability to use them in real life

Tiffany Evans
Intake Coordinator

Making change alone can be difficult—but with a team of skilled clinicians and a group of supportive peers, you’ll discover you’re more capable than you may have realized. Contact us today to see if Neurodivergent-Friendly DBT Skills Training Group is the right fit for you.

Ready to join? Click the link below to schedule a call with our intake coordinator, Tiffany, or call us directly at 347-947-7082.

ND DBT Skills Group may be covered by your insurance plan. Click here to see what insurance providers we accept. Self-pay monthly memberships are also available.