For adolescents and young adults in Colorado, Amanda Edwards offers a weekly DBT group (ages 13-23). In this group, participants learn mindfulness strategies, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal communication skills. It’s taught via Google Meet with cameras optional for those who experience anxiety or “zoom fatigue”.
This group is appropriate for such a wide range in ages because there’s very little, if any, personal processing going on – it’s not a “talk about our personal struggles and feelings” kind of group. Many of the participants struggle with suicidal thoughts/feelings, self-injury, and/or intense emotional reactions to stressors that cause disruption in their relationships with others.
Participants have the option of leaving their cameras off for the duration of the group if they’d like but they do participate and are expected to remain engaged throughout. Each group session begins and ends with a mindfulness practice. The entirety of the DBT Skills curriculum is covered in about 16 weeks total so they receive guidance in approximately 32 different mindfulness practices and are encouraged to practice “what works for them” in between group sessions.
The “meat” of the group in between the mindfulness skills includes learning strategies for Distress Tolerance, Emotion Regulation (how to feel your feelings without drowning in them or letting them control you), and Interpersonal Communication. Participants are mailed a binder worksheets and other materials so we can work together to fill in blanks and they can give examples and reflect on how skills integrate into their own lives.
Amanda also offers a parents/caregivers group on the first Saturday of the month at 10:30am as a gift to the adults in these teens’ lives. This group includes its own mindfulness practice and learning what teens have learned so the family can be on the same page and speak the DBT “language” to help teens practice and use the skills they’re learning in group.
Please email amandamedwardsLPC@gmail.com to sign up!