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Requirements for Intensive TrainingTM

Intensive TrainingTM is designed for training teams of mental health professionals who intend to provide a comprehensive Dialectical Behaviour Therapy programme within their clinical service. Teams applying for Intensive TrainingTM must have a minimum size of 4 team members (in this case we recommend that you select a 5th team member as a backup) and a maximum of 8. The requirements for the team and for individuals are listed below:

Each team:

  1. Requires either a clinical/counselling/forensic psychologist OR a person with demonstrable graduate training in behaviour therapy. The rationale for this requirement is that there is evidence from the DBT literature that of a rangeof different predictors (gender, years of clinical experience, number of previous DBT cases, therapist burnout, prior training in behavioural therapy and/or assessment), the only significant predictor of DBT adherence was whether therapist had graduate training in the therapy and application of learning theory and behavioural psychology. If you do not have a team member with a graduate qualification in clinical, counselling or forensic psychology then you must demonstrate who on the team has these skills and how they acquired them.
  2. All teams MUST be genuine teams i.e. you either are already or have explicit plans to meet together to deliver a comprehensive DBT programme to a group of clients in a single setting e.g. out-patient adult clients. If you intend to treat more than one client group e.g. adults and adolescents or in more than one setting e.g. inpatient and outpatient you need to train staff for two separate programmes. The training assumes that you are all committed to developing and delivering a DBT service as part of training and beyond.
  3. Must ideally have a member in addition to the person named in (1), who has training in, and experience of, delivering psychological therapies.

Each individual team member:

  1. Must be employed by a healthcare organisation that expects them to be seeing clients.
  2. Must be registered to practice with a regulatory professional body e.g. Health Professions Council, General Medical Council, Nursing & Midwifery Council, Professional Standards Authority.
  3. Must commit at least 15 hours per week to learning and delivering DBT. To begin with these hours will mainly consist of training but we expect that shortly after Part I applicants will start seeing patients within the programme. As an indicator a team of 4 providing 15 hours per week can deliver a comprehensive programme (Skills Groups, Individual Therapy, Telephone Consultation & Consultation Team) for up to 16 patients.