Do you want to know how to work with people with borderline disorder? Have you heard about dialectical-behavioral therapy (DBT) and are you curious what it is? We invite you to a challenging encounter between Transactional Analysis and DBT, seen through the eyes and minds of some therapists who practice both.

The workshop addresses both specialists who use TA as a psychotherapeutic treatment and the general public interested in new ways of working with people with borderline personality disorder (BPD). Within 2 hours, we will present dialectical-behavior therapy as a tool to increase the effectiveness of intervention of therapists who use TA as a reference framework.

Derived from cognitive-behavioral therapy and Zen philosophy, dialectical behavior therapy is a psychotherapeutic method developed by Marsha M. Linehan in the late 1980s to work with people with borderline disorder. Over time, the method has proven its effectiveness for multiple disorders: addictions (substance, shopping, gambling, etc.), eating disorders, PTSD, depression.

The goal of DBT is to help customers build a life that is worth living through four components: skills training, individual therapy, telephone coaching and therapeutic team.

DBT creates a framework for the (re)learning of a set of skills that allows strengthening the Adult, a better capacity of containing and tolerance of emotional pain.

The skills training includes 4 very specific categories of skills with practical themes and exercises:

1. Mindfulness: practicing your current experience and increasing your awareness.
2. Crisis intervention: techniques for tolerance of difficult and painful situations without reaching self-destructive behaviors.
3. Interpersonal effectiveness: ask what you want, say “no” while maintaining self-esteem and relationships with others.
4. Emotional regulation: how to change the emotions you want to change.

There are several similar or overlapping concepts such as integrated Adult, strokes, strengthening the Adult, importance of therapeutic relationship. DBT and relational TA have many identical aspects. TA provides a wider framework of psychotherapy, helps us understand intrapsychic dynamics, and DBT provides us with concrete scientifically proven intervention tools for the treatment of people with BPD.

We will develop these common issues and will reveal some of the DBT tools useful in interventions in anxiety, impulse regulation, addictions, and obviously, especially in borderline disorder.