DBT Skills Manual for Adolescents

Dialectical behavior therapy has revolutionized cognitive behavioral therapies with constructs such as mindfulness and acceptance now permeating behavioral approaches. Adolescents differ from adult clients with regard to emotional and cognitive developmental level and context: they overwhelmingly attend school, and reside with their families and depend on them for daily functioning, including for getting to therapy. Thus, we considered developmentally relevant as well as family-based targets, cognitive processing and capability differences, distinct liability issues, and interventions with their environments. Our adapted adolescent skills handouts are being used in multiple research settings; many clinical settings around the world employ some version of our materials. The publication of this manual makes them more widely available along with group management strategies and skills teaching notes to assist the DBT skills trainer working with adolescents--