Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Groups (DBT) coming to Westford, MA with Lisa Wessan, LICSW

WESTFORD, Mass. - Oct. 12, 2015 - PRLog -- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) Skills Groups will be offered in Middlesex County starting on November 11, 2015.  Lisa Wessan, LICSW, psychotherapist, life coach, author and speaker, will be leading these DBT groups in her office at the Westford Center for Counseling and Holistic Therapies.  Each group is limited to 10 participants.

Psychologists agree that difficult emotions such as anger, fear, sadness, guilt and shame are part of being alive and are meant to help protect us; however, when they get out of control, these emotions can also cause severe pain. "When you're in the grip of an emotional storm, it's all too easy to overreact, lash out at others, act out with your addiction, go shopping, binge watch TV, or become angry with yourself," says Wessan.

Dr. Marsha Linehan, Professor of Psychology at the University of Washington in Seattle and Director of the Behavioral Research and Therapy Clinics, developed DBT to help people with overwhelming emotions calm themselves when their feelings become too painful or out of control.

Dr. Linehan's primary research has been in borderline personality disorder, bipolar diorder and addictions.  As a result, she has spent decades in the application of behavioral models to depression, anxiety, suicidal behaviors and substance abuse. With her team of researchers, Linehan has organized an exemplary system of recovery that has achieved empirically verified, evidence-based success in thousands of research programs that have studied DBT's positive effects and long term viability.

"This past summer, I spent a week with Dr. Linehan and her team on Cape Cod in an intensive training program. Even though I had been studying DBT from articles and books for years, working with Dr. Linehan herself was a powerful and impactful experience. I then became inspired to teach these skills to others for a variety of moderate behavioral ailments, not just for those with severe mental challenges," says Wessan.

"Based on the premise that every thought becomes a chemical reaction in your body, what I love about DBT is that it offers a multi-modal approach to change your thoughts, heal your body and mind, and then change your life. You feel better almost immediately. The speed of the turnaround is remarkable!" reports Wessan.

"In addition, exploring the DBT skills offers us a rich, challenging and fun program of recovery, utilizing Dr. Linehan's robust repository of handouts and worksheets. Moreover, all of this DBT practice is backed by rigorous science. That's why DBT is a good fit for me, for I'm all about Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) for my clients," added Wessan.

Wessan's DBT Skills Group will present an overview of each of the four DBT skills: Distress Tolerance, Mindfulness, Emotion Regulation, and Interpersonal Effectiveness and Assertiveness.

Participants will learn to monitor their successes, chart their progress, and stay on track making productive changes in their lives. "According to the research, it takes about a year for participants to fully absorb and implement the tools they pick up from DBT. True mastery of life, for me, is being able to live in ambiguity with joy. When my clients can successfully live with various degrees of ambiguity, letting go of fearful control and anxiety, stay focused and accomplish their goals, moving forward in their personal and professional lives, our work is done," explains Wessan.

During the group sessions, participants will:

• Learn over fifty techniques to use when they feel overwhelmed,
• Find out which coping strategies work best for them,
• Discover nutritional and lifestyle self care adaptations that can make them feel stronger and more alert,
• Learn to access "Wise Mind" and improve their intuitive and empathetic abilities.

"In the whole body of the work, DBT includes several hundred methods and techniques for improved relaxation, focus, productivity and creativity. I tell my participants to take what they like and leave the rest. It's my hope and prayer that they will quickly find their favorite DBT skills, and that they will use them regularly," says Wessan. "Clearly, there is no One Size Fits All set of transformation tools, but with DBT skills, in the course of the year, you're bound to hit it!" exclaims Wessan.

Wessan has been a psychotherapist and life coach for over 15 years. She is renowned for her pioneering work in therapeutic laughter, hoarding, and substance abuse. She is a frequent keynote speaker on Therapeutic Laughter for Caregivers, Team Building with Laughter and Let Go and Lighten UP: Laughter is the Best Medicine, for audiences ranging from medical schools to corporations. All of her keynote presentations and seminars are approved for continuing education credits. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Lowell Sun and in many other media sources.

Her creative work with people on the hoarding spectrum has grown out of her popular seminar Declutter Your Mind, Home and Office: Creating a Space for Grace. "I appreciate and utilize the methods offered by the traditional thought leaders in this field, such as Gail Steketee, Randy Frost, Karen Kingston, David Allen and others I adore, but I blend in a broad psychospiritual component to this work. Participants are drawn to Creating a Space for Grace because they want to invite spiritual energy into their decluttering process. Prayer, meditation, visualization, Scripture, Source Energy, Angels and whatever it takes is added to the task at hand for extra motivation and inspiration," notes Wessan.

Please visit http://www.MirthMaven.com for more info.