New year, new edition of DBT

This week I am preparing for our program to switch to the new edition of DBT skills. This will be the third version of DBT that has been published since I started with DBT in 2009. While this latest version has smaller changes than the last version, it still is some work to make the change.

Although it is a significant amount of admin, doing the work to change to the latest version of DBT is worth it to me because I value the quality of our DBT program. One of the things that I admire about DBT is that it is evidenced based. The founder of DBT, Marsha Linehan, spent many years after first publishing the DBT treatment researching and fine tuning the program. A strong community of DBT practitioners around the world has also contributed to the research on DBT. And it is some of these practitioners who has contributed to the latest update of the DBT skills.

I have been privileged to see the difference that DBT makes to individuals over my years as a DBT therapist. I also appreciate the  wider, quantitative, research conducted by others to validate DBT. I’m looking forward to using the latest version of DBT with my clients in 2026.