Portage Keremeos staff learn about Dialectical Behaviour Therapy

19-juil.-2010Portage provides access to training and development for personnel in its efforts to continuously better the service offering.

A relatively new form of treatment, Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) is particularly effective on people who suffer from Borderline Personality Disorders, says Leslee Armstrong, a social worker at Portage Keremeos who is currently undergoing a series of training sessions at the Dialectical Behaviour Therapy Centre in Portland, Oregon. To date, she has attended an introductory conference, another on eating disorders, and will be going to one in the fall on teens and families.

“There are several residents at Portage Keremeos who suffer from Borderline Personality Disorders, which have led to eating disorders, depression, high anxiety, suicidal tendencies, and addiction,” says Leslee. “Providing Dialectical Behaviour Therapy at Portage can help these young people learn how to react more rationally to stressful situations, rather than with self-destructive emotional behaviour.”

People who suffer from Borderline Personality Disorders are often very hard on themselves and have trouble seeing things two different ways or understanding that two seemingly opposite things can be true at the same time. Dialectical Behaviour Therapy can help people step back from a situation to understand it from a variety of perspectives, thus being able to digest it in a more rational manner.

Leslee gives an example of the treatment’s success on a female Portage Keremeos resident. Prior to her Dialectical Behaviour Therapy, she found out that she may not be able to go back to her foster family after her stay at Portage. She was stuck in an emotional web of anxiety for two days. Leslee worked with the resident using DBT and when this fact was later confirmed, the resident reacted much more rationally. It took her only a half an hour to reason it out.

Leslee explains that DBT cultivates “a mindfulness to help change emotional thoughts”. It encourages people to use a “wide though process”, which helps them to recognise that there is a reasonable explanation to every situation. DBT can help a person be more flexible and receptive to taking on the competencies and skills that the Portage program seeks to instill in its residents.

Leslee and the Portage Keremeos nurse, Kathryn Smith, who has also attended the training, have just begun to apply Dialectical Behaviour Therapy with a few girls who are suffering from eating disorders. They will be teaching some DBT components to other staff members, to be incorporated into their individual treatment plans, as needed.