DBT Skills Training in Gloucestershire

Hello, I am Jane Vickers and I offer DBT skills training to adults in the county of Gloucestershire. I run a small practice in Stroud on Tuesdays-Thursdays each week between 9 am-5 pm.  Currently all sessions are online.

I am an Accredited DBT Therapist and Accredited DBT Supervisor with the Society for DBT UK & Ireland (Sfdbt UK & Ireland.)

I was intensively trained in the model in 2005 with the British Isles Training Team (the sole licensed providers of DBT training in the UK.) Two of the trainers were Dr Heidi Heard and Professor Michaela A. Swales who are renowned clinicians in the DBT field for their work with individuals experiencing Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD.) I have been a member of the Board of Accreditation for the Society for DBT in the UK and Ireland (SfDBT) in collaboration with The Linehan Institute USA since 2019.

I have extensive experience in helping people overcome a wide variety of mental health difficulties such as emotional sensitivity, self-harm, impulsive behaviours, suicidal thoughts, difficulties managing anger, a confused sense of self, a fear of abandonment, feelings of emptiness and numbness, recurrent depression, anxiety and struggles in managing relationships with others using DBT and informed DBT since 2005. In particular, I have specialised in working with individuals who have Borderline Personality Disorder. Most of my work has been with adults, however, I  have also worked with teenagers.

I have worked in the NHS for 22 years and privately for 6 years. I am passionate about DBT because I have seen first-hand over the years how it has changed people’s lives for the better. I strongly believe that the treatment can help individuals to stop harmful behaviours they may be engaging in that they would like to change and it supports people in achieving their life worth living goals.

I enjoy working with individuals who have Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) (also known as Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder or EUPD,) or who have traits of the diagnosis and individuals who experience complex psychological needs. However, I also believe that the treatment can be helpful for anyone who is struggling with their mental health. To highlight this, in 2010 I created and developed a transdiagnostic DBT Skills Training group for adults and the results of four years of the group were published in May 2016 in the Mental Health Practice journal entitled “Assessing a Six-Month Dialectical Behaviour Therapy Skills-Only Group.”

I am an enthusiastic, motivated DBT Therapist and I feel my strength is that I am down to earth and able to build trust and a rapport with someone early on in treatment. I am compassionate, caring, calm and non-judgemental. I work in a person-centred way looking at the individual needs of the person in a holistic way with the emphasis on helping someone to manage distress to reduce emotional suffering. By learning more effective and helpful ways of coping it means the person’s quality of life is improved.

I am currently a supervisor for Health Education England (HEE) for the DBT Post Graduate Diploma at Bangor University helping health professionals to become adherent to the model so that they can apply for DBT accreditation. I also supervise other DBT Therapists for their accreditation who work with adults and/or teenagers in the NHS, I supervise NHS DBT teams and DBT team leads throughout the UK.

DBT stands for Dialectical Behaviour Therapy. It is a therapy based upon Cognitive Behaviour therapy (CBT) that aims to teach people skills to keep their emotions on an even keel and to build a life worth living. It was developed by Dr Marsha Linehan and it is an effective and evidence based treatment in helping people manage overwhelming emotions. It was initially aimed to treat people with Borderline Personality Disorder who experience persistent emotional and behavioural difficulties that interfere with their day to day living.

The skills and coping strategies within DBT come from ideas that already have substantial research and practice to support their use. The idea is to learn skills to replace ineffective behaviours that are possibly harmful and cause us suffering and to address the problems that cause difficulties in how we function in our lives.

DBT therapists teaching the skills use an accepting, non-judgemental, respectful approach in keeping with DBT. Validation is used to help people to try and change and to explore different ways of coping with their emotions and distress. There is a clear structure to the skills work, the skills are taught in a supportive environment and agreed goals are set to help the process of change.

DBT is based on working out Dialectics. Sometimes, when we have a problem we can only see the extremes and miss the middle way of seeing something, we tend to look at things in black and white terms without seeing the grey or middle area. If we only see the extremes we get stuck which leads to suffering.

The DBT skills help us to see that there is some truth in the black and white of a situation and help us to have a more balanced view and consequently help us to change our way of thinking so it is more healthy.