Consultation for Therapists
Both evidenced-based treatments can be of help
when your progress has been stunted.
Every week there is a different crisis related to your client’s identity, interpersonal issues, intense emotion, or the chaos in their lives and you can barely get to the meat of ERP. You find yourself feeling exhausted, anxious before opening your email, and feeling incompetent in helping them. You know you are a well-trained and accomplished therapist, and you see the potential within them, yet just as you think you are making progress, you find yourself triggered and unable to be as effective as you know you can be to help them reach their goals. You are out of ideas on how to bridge the gap between the intense emotional presentation and the desire to help, but you know something must change in order to help them reach their goals.
You see the good in your client but you’re not able to close the gap between the potential you see in your client and the strategies and skills needed to help your client get there. You know there is a possibility but you’re having trouble making it a reality. You are okay with intense emotion but because you are not bridging the gap it’s exhausting. I empower my therapist to utilize these skills to really strategize in ways that reach their clients to elicit change and all in them in a way that makes the client feel safer, as well as, more regulated and calmer so that you can work on things they came to see you for instead of being in a dysregulated state even in the therapy session. This might include helping the client manage their emotions more effectively in sessions, being more consistent with setting, and adhering to limits without frequent in-between session contact.
Something has to give and coaching is available
While you have done great work together, you know you are at an impasse, something must give but you don’t want to abandon them in a time of need.
Expertise in ERP and DBT
As a DBT and ERP expert, I provide consultation to therapists who are struggling with their clients but still have hope that they can be a source of change for them. I educate and empower the therapists that I work within consultation by helping them to adhere to limits, teach them ways to improve emotional dysregulation within their clients, and how to tolerate distress. Within the consultation, we talk about the principles of DBT, the application of DBT skills, and offer ancillary DBT skills training and/or brief therapy to your client.
