<div>Expand your toolkit for coping with unwanted emotions, surviving distressing events and improving interpersonal relationships.</div><div style="margin-top: 20px"><div style="margin: 20px 10px;font-size: 15px;line-height: 22px;font-weight: 400;text-align: left;"><p>Dialectical behaviour therapy skills training is all about learning how to cope more effectively with distress, unwanted emotions and interpersonal interactions. Research shows that it is effective at reducing suicidality, depression, anxiety, improving relationships and reducing interpersonal conflict. I use the skills in my everyday life &amp; think everyone would probably find them helpful.</p><p>This course is designed to center folks that want to learn DBT skills with others in their lives. Whether you want to learn with your partner/s, friends or housemates, this could be the group for you! Most participants will have relationships are outside the cisgender, monogamous, relationship escalator norm in one or more ways. This may be because of their sexuality, gender identity, neurodiversity, non monogamy or disability. In most of my groups, more than 50% of participants identify with neurodiverse, Autistic, ADHD or neuroqueer. We welcome allies, so long as you are comfortable in a space centering us. </p><p>Most of my courses offer an intensive DBT training experience, which includes talking about the skills we learned previously and going over homework in session. This course is different. You will have access to the Slack community to ask questions about the homework and seek feedback on the skills you've used. We won't be talking about skills diaries or the previous weeks skills in the online classes though, they will be all about learning a new skill. </p><p><strong>What will I have to do?</strong></p><p>You will attend a 1-hour session each week and complete homework between sessions – this usually takes between 20 minutes and an hour. You will be invited to join a slack channel where additional resources will be posted and you will be invited to ask any questions that you have.</p><p></p><p><strong>What do you do in a group meeting?</strong></p><p>We start with a mindfulness exercise, then we would learn a new skill. There may be breakout groups and/or folks volunteering to offer examples from their own lives to illustrate skill use. </p><p></p><p><strong>Is this group therapy?</strong></p><p>No, its learning new skills. I’m here to facilitate learning, on the understanding that we are peers that are seeking to learn these skills together. Each participant is an expert in their life, and will have a different relationship to the skills. This group is about learning more options for dealing with emotions and the challenges that we face in life.</p><p></p><p><strong>Do I need to have a diagnosis to come to this group?</strong></p><p>Absolutely not. DBT assumes that some people have a harder time coping with emotions than others, and managing impulses or behaviours. It suggests some of this is biological, but some comes from an invalidating social environment. Sadly, many of us live within one of those! Especially if we are queer, sex workers, people of colour, disabled etc.</p><p></p><p><strong>Who will be there?</strong></p><p>Other folks signing up on an ongoing basis.</p><p></p><p><strong>Who is this for?</strong></p><p>This course is for folks wanting to learn DBT skills with people in their lives (partner/s, friends, housemates, PA's). It is for people who are interested in developing resilience, living authentically and improving their relationships (and ending toxic ones).</p><p></p><p><strong>Who is this course not for?</strong></p><p>People that want quick fixes, people that don’t want to do homework or practice skills and people that will judge the life choices of others in the group.</p><p></p><p><strong>What skills will be covered? </strong></p><p>We are starting in September 2021 with distress tolerance skills, but will move onto emotion regulation skills in early 2022 and then interpersonal effectiveness skills in Summer 2022. </p></div><div style="margin: 20px 0;line-height: 22px;"><iframe src="https://youtube.com/embed/stvvLQsEmY4/" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0"></iframe></div></div>