Kacey, I'm so sorry you've had such a bad experience. This all sounds quite horrifying. I'm not at all clear why your particular clinic regards these tests as some kind of 'entrance exam' to DBT. There is nothing at all like this written into DBT itself. I'm also very confused by her feedback from the MMPI- DBT is used primarily for people with borderline personality disorder. A key element of BPD is an unstable sense of self (personality), making it quite likely, to me, that people would not come out with a 'consistent' personality profile.

As far as I (and I suspect Marsha Linehan) am concerned, it is not possible to 'show too much distress' to be to do DBT. These are exactly the people who DBT was designed for- people with high levels of distress, sui and SI behaviour, who were rejected by more established therapies and therapists as being too hard to treat, and unlikely to recover.

Yes, we do struggle to learn new ways of thinking, feeling and behaving. DBT is built for people who have these very struggles. And it works. But how demoralizing to be given such very negative feedback by a DBT programme. Even more baffling in light of the fact that a few months ago, your T selected your sessions to be filmed for his DBT training, because he felt they so perfectly reflected how DBT looks when it is working well!!

I'm so very sorry they are behaving like this. Please don't give up. You *can* do it, and DBT *can* help you.