[maybeblue]

Has anyone had luck with DBT? The philosophy makes a lot of sense to me, but I'm having a really hard time with the therapist. I want to do the whole thing, skills training group, individual, phone coaching. So I'm paying a lot of money to do just that. But the therapist is freaking me out.

It's hard to say exactly what it is. I'm doing it over a video conference which might be part of it. But there's something else too. She always seems like she is in a hurry. She throws skills out a mile a minute. She also always seems annoyed at me. I think maybe I contact her too much. Actually I am sure I contact her too much. But what happens is that I feel apprehensive, but not horrible before a session and then in the session I get more and more upset and then by the end I am crazy and dysregulated. It usually takes me two full days to recover from therapy and sometimes I contact her to try to fix it.

I feel worse after therapy than I have in months before I started therapy. I've had 5 individual sessions and 4 of them were horrible. Horrible like I'm calling the suicide hotline because my therapist is upsetting me. How dumb is that...but emotional regulation is why I'm going to DBT. I want to learn the skills, but just reading them isn't enough. The group isn't bad, but we are in interpersonal effectiveness which doesn't seem to be fixing my interpersonal problems with my therapist.

I guess I'm trying to figure out if the problem is the therapist or DBT itself.

My thought is that is you've already identified a few of the problems keeping you from learning the skills you are looking to understand. Either you are able to work past these challenges or maybe it would be easier to find a different group or therapist. If that is not possible, try using the skills learned to ask for what you need . This may be a test of both your and your therapist's patience. I have had both good and bad experiences with DBT, but I also suffer from social anxieties which held me back from group practice. Practicing DBT skill in a group is an important part of the interpersonal part of the experience. Group dynamics may vary between groups and also by who is present or not there that day. Maybe try to find your role in the group and try to set a good example when possible.

[ElectricManatee]

It sounds like the therapist might be the problem. One way to get a better sense of whether that's true is to try a different one and see what happens. I am not doing a full DBT program, but I am seeing a therapist who has DBT techniques in her bag of tricks and I like her so far. If you feel really thrown off kilter by your T for whatever reason, that's really not a good sign for your treatment.