DBT Masterclasses at InsightDBT

Masterclasses are available to current InsightDBT clients, former clients, and individuals receiving therapy through outside providers. Participants do not need to be enrolled in InsightDBT’s comprehensive DBT program unless otherwise specified for a particular class.

Traditional DBT skills groups teach a broad curriculum across several months. A DBT Masterclass narrows the focus to one important topic and examines it closely through instruction, examples, discussion, exercises, and practical application.

During each one-hour session, participants may explore:

• The purpose of the featured DBT skill
• Common misunderstandings and barriers
• When the skill should and should not be used
• Real-world clinical and interpersonal examples
• Strategies for using the skill during intense emotions
• Practice exercises and worksheets
• Ways to integrate the skill into daily routines

These focused sessions are designed to reinforce existing knowledge, clarify difficult concepts, and provide practical tools that can be used immediately.

InsightDBT Masterclasses go beyond introductory explanations and explore the deeper layers of DBT. Topics may include:

Learn the difference between acceptance, approval, resignation, and giving up. This session explores how to reduce suffering when a painful reality cannot immediately be changed.

Examine the repeated internal choice required to return to acceptance. Participants learn how to recognize willfulness and practice willingness, willing hands, and half-smiling.

Move beyond understanding Wise Mind as an abstract idea. Learn how to access balanced decision-making during anger, panic, shame, conflict, or impulsive urges.

Explore how interpretations, assumptions, perceived threats, and past experiences influence emotional responses. Participants learn how to determine whether an emotion fits the facts and whether its intensity is effective.

Learn how Opposite Action differs across fear, anger, shame, guilt, sadness, and jealousy. This class focuses on using the skill fully rather than performing only part of the opposite behavior.

Explore the levels of validation and learn how to validate a person’s emotional experience without agreeing with inaccurate beliefs or reinforcing ineffective behavior.

Learn how DBT clinicians examine prompting events, vulnerability factors, thoughts, emotions, urges, actions, consequences, and missing skills. Participants identify where a behavioral chain can be interrupted before a crisis escalates.

Take a deeper look at crisis survival, self-soothing, improving the moment, sensory regulation, pros and cons, and short-term strategies that protect long-term goals.

Designed especially for teens, parents, and families, this session explores dialectical thinking, reducing extreme positions, increasing flexibility, and balancing acceptance with change.

Practice DEAR MAN, GIVE, FAST, boundaries, assertiveness, relationship repair, and self-respect during emotionally charged conversations.

DBT Masterclasses may be appropriate for:

• Current InsightDBT adolescent and adult clients
• Parents and caregivers participating in family-based DBT treatment
• Former clients seeking a DBT refresher
• Individuals working with outside therapists
• People interested in learning specific DBT skills
• Mental health professionals attending designated clinician-focused sessions

Some Masterclasses may be created specifically for teens, adults, parents, families, or clinicians. The intended audience will be clearly identified for each session.

InsightDBT Masterclasses may be offered live through Zoom or in person at select New York locations. Our hybrid format helps make DBT education more accessible to participants with busy work, school, family, or transportation schedules.

Masterclasses are offered individually, allowing participants to choose topics that match their current needs without enrolling in an extended course.

Masterclasses are educational and skills-focused. They can strengthen therapy, provide additional practice, and deepen a participant’s understanding of DBT.

A Masterclass is not a replacement for comprehensive Dialectical Behavior Therapy when a person requires individual therapy, weekly skills group, phone coaching, clinical monitoring, or crisis planning. Individuals seeking full DBT treatment may be referred to InsightDBT’s Comprehensive Adolescent or Adult DBT Program.

DBT skills are most effective when they are understood, practiced, and applied consistently. InsightDBT Masterclasses provide a focused opportunity to examine one skill at a time, ask meaningful questions, and develop a clearer plan for using DBT outside of therapy.

Use the button below to book a masterclass with our team.