Training for DBT Therapists:
DBT WITH PARENTS, COUPLES & FAMILIES
Four-day online interactive training with Alan E. Fruzzetti, Ph.D.
Time:
10:00am to 4:00pm U.S. Eastern Time each day (7am-1pm Pacific)
Place:
Online via Zoom
Dates in 2026:
March 5, 6, 19, 20
More dates to be announced
To be added to our waitlist please use the contact us button below
Training cost: US$750.00 per person for individual registration.
For groups of 3 or more people working on the same DBT team the cost is US$700.00 per person when registering as a team. Discount code details on the registration page and must be applied at time of registration. Please note that one person will need to register the team as a group, it is not possible to have people register separately and use the discount code; we apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
You will receive confirmation soon following registration and the Zoom link will be sent to you the week of the training.
A limited number of reduced rate registrations are available for student trainees working on DBT teams. Contact us for details.
Attendance: This training is limited to the first 24 people who register.
Register: Please complete the registration form linked from the red buttons.
Training Description:
When families are distressed and in high conflict (including disengagement), parents, partners and children also show individual distress and dysregulated emotion. This can include anger, fear, hurt feelings, grief and sadness, embarrassment, and loneliness or isolation. These painful emotions frequently contribute to out-of-control behaviors including suicide attempts, substance misuse, aggression, school problems, parent over-control and a variety of relationship problems (distance and aversive conflict). In addition to being a core transactional problem, family distress can significantly interfere with good outcomes for individuals in DBT (or other treatments). Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) has been shown in hundreds of studies to be effective in treating the many problems associated with emotion dysregulation in adults and in adolescents. Over the past 35+ years Dr. Fruzzetti has adapted DBT to use with parents, couples and families, with multiple studies demonstrating successful outcomes, including improving outcomes for individuals and for their relationships. In this training, Dr. Fruzzetti will teach and demonstrate DBT interventions specifically for parents, couples and families: 1) individual DBT skills adapted for parents; 2) specific DBT parent, partner and relationship skills; 3) DBT family therapy targets; 4) session structures and in-session management; and 5) specific DBT family therapy intervention procedures. The overarching goals of these interventions are to help families become less reactive and destructive, and instead more peaceful, collaborative and loving, and to increase positive outcomes for parents, youth, adult children, couples and their relationships.
After an orientation to the DBT transactional model and the overall treatment model for working with parents, partners and families, Dr. Fruzzetti will use lectures, role plays, participant practices and experiential exercises to help participants learn: 1) how traditional DBT skills can be employed with parents and partners; 2) new DBT family skills with parents and families; 3) build a treatment target hierarchy with families (including self-harm, aggression, substance use, angry outbursts, withdrawal, other relationship problems, etc.); 4) how DBT therapists can manage in-session dysregulated and chaotic family member behaviors to be able to conduct effective couple and family sessions; 5) apply chain analyses and solution analyses (plus practice implementing skills) with two or more family members simultaneously (“double chains”); 6) use principles and intervention strategies of DBT with families to make communication possible, to reduce dysfunction and help rebuild relationships; and 6) integrate both acceptance and change strategies (and skills) dialectically and collaboratively into solutions.
Examples will include interactions between teen and young adult children and their parents, couples - all types of family constellations.
Teaching handouts, family skill handouts and key readings will be provided.
Learning Objectives:
Day 1:
1. Describe how emotion vulnerability and invalidation transact to create emotion dysregulation in families
2. Build a treatment target hierarchy relevant to parents and partners
3. Employ blocking in-session to de-escalate emotion dysregulation
4. Explain and us the “revolving door” door strategy
Day 2:
1. Teach parents and partners relationship mindfulness
2. Teach both accurate expression and validating responses to family members (and how they are connected)
3. Teach parents and partners how to reactivate their relationship
4. Help family members move away from anger and find and express more helpful primary emotions
Day 3:
1. Help parents and partners know when and how to observe limits
2. Teach and coach collaborative problem solving
3. Learn techniques for establishing safety in families
4. Identify situations in which eliminating or removing negative reinforcers are likely to increase safety
Day 4:
1. Conduct a “double chain” to understand how family transactions evolve and contribute to problem behaviors and to identify points of intervention
2. Utilize the double chain to weave in new skills as solutions
3. Help parents and partners use opposite action to fear (exposure) to reduce reactivity following a suicide attempt or serious self-harm in their loved one
4. Know how to evaluate couple, parent and family outcomes
CE Hours
Continuing education This program is sponsored by the Massachusetts Psychological Association. Massachusetts Psychological Association is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Massachusetts Psychological Association maintains responsibility for this program and its content.
This program has been approved for 22 Social Work Continuing Education hours for relicensure, in accordance with 258 CMR. NASW-MA Chapter CE Approving Program, Authorization Number D 90033.
Presenter:
Alan E. Fruzzetti, PhD, is a Research Fellow at the National Suicide Research Foundation/ University College Cork, Lead for supervision & implementation for the National DBT Team in Ireland, Professor Emeritus at the University of Nevada-Reno, and previously on the faculty at Harvard Medical School. Alan is a co-founder of the Center for DBT and Families, the Center for Trauma and Stress Education, and the World DBT Association, a past-president of the National Education Alliance for Borderline Personality Disorder (NEA-BPD) and on the board of directors of the DBT Board of Certification and ISITDBT. He has developed dialectical behavior therapy applications for parents, couples and families and other successful DBT programs for people with suicidality, borderline personality disorder and other problems with emotion regulation, victims of aggression and violence, and the free NEA-BPD Family Connections programs for family members. His research focuses on the connections between emotion dysregulation and interpersonal or family processes and the development and evaluation of interventions to help both individuals and relationships. He has authored more than 140 research and clinical papers and book chapters, two books, testified to Congressional committees, and has lectured and trained professionals and the public in more than two dozen countries on BPD, DBT, suicidality, stress and trauma, family distress and DBT family interventions. He received his BA from Brown University and MS and PhD from the University of Washington in Seattle.
