Ongoing Research » Neacsiu research
Skills Training as a Mechanism of Change in Dialectical Behavior Therapy
Andrada Delia Neacsiu, B.A.
Department of Psychology, University of Washington
Skills training is one of the crucial modes of treatment for Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), a treatment developed for Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) (Linehan, 1993). Four different modules fall under the umbrella of DBT skills training: emotion regulation, interpersonal effectiveness, mindfulness and distress tolerance. Little research has been conducted thus far on the combined and discriminant effectiveness of the DBT skills training modules and on their role in treatment success. Existing evidence hints at the importance skills training plays in DBT; nevertheless the available data is methodologically feeble and non cohesive. The major difficulties within this area of research have been the lack of a proper measure for skills training as well as a non-standard application of DBT in studies where skills training was measured
To address these problems, we developed a new measure for skills training outcome that assesses the combined and individual effects of each skills training module. This measure was subsequently used across 3 different RCTs where standard DBT was compared to a control condition. Data from 100 participants undergoing either DBT or a control treatment will be used to assess how skills training modules bring about change in DBT.