ISCA - Distress Tolerance Skills for Emotion Dysregulation

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Distress Tolerance Skills for Emotion Dysregulation

Course Title

Distress Tolerance Skills for Emotion Dysregulation

Course Number

ISCA 303

Course Overview

In this training, school counselors will learn how to effectively teach Distress Tolerance Skills, a subset of skills commonly used in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), an evidence-based psychotherapy. These skills have been shown to effectively help adolescents better tolerate and down-regulate strong emotions such as fear and anxiety, panic attacks, crying spells, grief, guilt or shame, jealousy, and infatuation, as well as many others.

This course is designed to teach counselors how to “coach” students in using distress tolerance. Counselors will learn how to be engaging and memorable in their instruction style so that the skills become a habitual part of the students’ emotional coping repertoire. Additionally, counselors will leave with a comprehensive understanding of the biological and psychological rationales for why these distress tolerance skills are effective in down regulating emotions.

ISCA Student Standards

ASCA Professional Standards and Ethical Standards and Practices

A.1. Supporting Student Development

b. Aim to provide counseling to students in a brief context and support students and families/guardians in obtaining outside services if the student needs long-term clinical counseling.

h. Provide effective, responsive interventions to address student needs.

A.6. Appropriate Referrals and Advocacy

a. Collaborate with all relevant stakeholders, including students, educators and parents/guardians when student assistance is needed, including the identification of early warning signs of student distress

A.7. Group Work

a. Facilitate short-term groups to address students’ academic, career and/or social/emotional issues.
j. Provide necessary follow up with group members.

A.9. Serious and Foreseeable Harm to Self and Others

a. Inform parents/guardians and/or appropriate authorities when a student poses a serious and foreseeable risk of harm to self or others.

A.15. Virtual/Distance School Counseling

B.3. Responsibilities to Self

Professional Foundation

B-PF 1. Apply developmental, learning, counseling and education theories

School Counselors will:

c. Use established and emerging evidence-based counseling theories and techniques that are effective in a school setting to promote academic, career and social/emotional development, including but not limited to rational emotive behavior therapy, reality therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy, Adlerian, solution-focused brief counseling, person-centered counseling and family systems.

Intended Audience

School counselors at any level of training or experience.

Essential Questions

What are some creative, engaging, and memorable ways that I can teach distress tolerance skills to students?

How can I practice these distress tolerance skills myself?

Knowledge

Skills

Participants will have knowledge about:

Participants will be able to:

How distress tolerance interventions impact the autonomic nervous system
The difference between acceptance and change based distress tolerance interventions
Theory of Limited Behavioral Repertoire
A subset of the DBT Distress Tolerance Skills

Demonstrate and teach biologically-based distress tolerance skills (e.g., using cold temperature to illicit dive response, using variable breathing to engage parasympathetic system).
Demonstrate and teach behaviorally-based distress tolerance skills (e.g., STOP skill to mindfully halt impulsive behaviors, healthy distraction options for students vs. unhealthy distraction options)
Demonstrate and teach cognitive-based distress tolerance skills (e.g., “Cope Ahead” skill to prepare for emotional challenges, “Comparison” skill to develop healthy perspective on struggles).

About the Facilitator

Ren Stinson is a board-certified clinical psychologist with over 10 years of experience practicing and training in community mental health, university counseling settings, and the US Military Veterans Health Administration. Ren is currently in private practice in Minneapolis, Minnesota while also providing mental health care for international clients through The Truman Group. Ren specializes in treating trauma-related disorders, anxiety and depression, and emotion regulation problems. Ren is formally trained in Cognitive Behavior Therapy, Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Prolonged Exposure Therapy, and Cognitive Processing Therapy. He has a special interest in multicultural issues including cultural identity development, coping with racism and other oppression, and LGBTQ health. He provides trainings and workshops on behavior therapy approaches and multicultural psychology in the U.S. and internationally. He provides ongoing consultation services to international school counselors through The Truman Group. Ren was previously the co-lead of the DBT clinical team at the Minneapolis, VA while also providing DBT trainings nationally for the VA system. Ren was born in Tokyo, Japan and spent his childhood both in Oakland, California and as an international school kid in Kobe, Japan.

Dates and times of offerings

August 27, 2021 @ 12:00 GMT

Contact hours

Three (3) Professional Development Hours

Time commitment between sessions

Required Resource(s)

Something to write with and something to write on.

References

Koerner, K. (2012). Doing dialectical behavior therapy: A practical guide. The Guilford Press.

Linehan, M.M. (2015). DBT skills training manual. The Guilford Press.

Rathus, J.H. & Miller, A.L. (2015). DBT skills manual for adolescents. The Guilford Press.

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International School Counselor Association