Adolescents and Carers experience of Dialectical Behaviour Therapy
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Dialectical Behavioural Group Therapy: A qualitative exploration of the experiences of adolescents and their carers
IRAS ID
193170
Contact name
Ellen Westwood
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Birmingham
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 7 months, 1 days
Research summary
Dialectic Behaviour Therapy (DBT was developed by Linehan (1993) as an intervention to meet the needs of women with borderline personality disorder. DBT has since developed as an intervention for other clinical populations (Dimeff & Koerner, 2007). While people below the age of 18 cannot be formally diagnosed with a personality disorder, many adolescents present to services with emotion regulation difficulties and risky behaviour (e.g. self-harm, substance misuse). Consequently, DBT has been adapted for young people. Typically DBT delivery has two components: (1) Service users attend weekly individual sessions with a DBT therapist to discuss in detail personal challenges and how he/she can apply DBT skills, and (2) Service users are brought together through weekly DBT group sessions delivered by trained therapists. The DBT group teaches skills across four modules: interpersonal effectiveness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation and mindfulness. These skills are referred to in individual sessions to help service users plan for potentially difficult situations outside of therapy (e.g., mindfulness to help reduce emotional distress).
Research has identified that including adolescents' carers in DBT programs can be beneficial (Miller, Rathus and Linehan, 2007), so some DBT services run additional groups to teach DBT skills to carers. Carer groups run separately to young people’s groups, but the same DBT topics/skills are taught. However, despite services including carers in a young person’s treatment, there is currently no research of a qualitative nature that has captured how or why these groups are useful to service users and the carers who support them.
This study will explore adolescents’ and carers’ experiences of perceived change during a DBT group program by interviewing adolescents and carers who have completed all modules of a DBT group program. Data will be analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis.
REC name
West Midlands - South Birmingham Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
16/WM/0104
Date of REC Opinion
23 Mar 2016
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion