DBT Skills Group for Women in Westford MA (Dialectical Behavior Therapy)

WESTFORD, Mass. - Feb. 5, 2016 - PRLog -- The next fourteen week Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) Skills Group for women will be offered in Middlesex County starting on February 18, 2016.

Lisa Wessan, LICSW, psychotherapist, life coach, author and speaker, will be leading this DBT group in her office at the Westford Center for Counseling and Holistic Therapies. The 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, created 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. With her team of researchers, Linehan has developed 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.

"Last 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 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." reports Wessan. "In DBT, you learn to get out of what is called 'emotional mind' and get into 'wise mind'  learning critical thinking by mindfulness, radical acceptance and meditation," explains 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. In addition, 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 explore each of the four DBT skills modules: 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. 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."True mastery of life, for me, is being able to live in ambiguity with joy," she says.

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 many other media sources.

For further information, please visit http://www.MirthMaven.com.