North Central London CAMHS Dialectical Behaviour Therapy Team

DBT aims to balance Acceptance and Change for young people, supporting them to achieve their identified goals. Our Team offers, as part of the Comprehensive DBT programme the following interventions:

1. Assessment – once you are at the top of our waiting list, you will be invited for an assessment with the team. At the end of our assessment appointment, you will be informed whether you meet our criteria and most likely be offered an appointment to start pre-treatment the following week.
2. Pre-Treatment – if accepted to the team following assessment, you will begin 4-6 weeks of Pre-Treatment, a chance to get to know your individual therapist and ensure you are committed to the full DBT Programme. At the end of Pre-Treatment, you will need to sign a treatment contract with your therapist to graduate to the full treatment programme. If this isn’t possible, from your perspective or your therapists, you will be discharged with recommendations back to your community CAMHS Service.
3. Full Treatment – our treatment programme consists of weekly therapeutic sessions, weekly multi-family group skills training (6 months of the treatment, young people, parents/carers attend the same sessions weekly). Our full treatment programme lasts for a minimum of 8 months, with the potential to extend to 12 months if you are benefitting and using DBT effectively.

In addition to the above, once you are in the full treatment programme, you and your parent / carer will gain access to Phone Coaching Monday – Friday 9-5. Phone coaching can be used to support you in managing difficult situations and emotions, preventing crisis episodes and building on the skills you develop through the therapy.

Our DBT service provides Comprehensive DBT to young people who meet at least 5 out of the 9 symptoms below:

1. Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment,
2. A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterised by alternating between extremes of idealisation and devaluation,
3. Identity disturbance: markedly or persistently unstable self-image or sense of self,
4. Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., substance abuse, binge eating, risky sexual behaviour),
5. Recurrent suicidal behaviour or self-harming behaviour,
6. Unstable mood / Emotional Dysregulation - marked reactivity of mood lasting hours but rarely more than a few days.
7. Feeling empty.
8. Poor anger management.
9. Dissociation / paranoia occurring transiently in response to stressful situations.

As an additional requirement, the young person needs to have had 2+ episodes of self-harm or high-risk behaviours in the last 6 months.

Following your assessment, you and your family / carers will be allocate therapeutic team, which will include a one-to-one allocated therapist and a parental / carer worker.

All of our staff members are trained DBT Therapists, from a range of clinical and professional backgrounds – including:

• Mental Health Nurses
• Clinical Psychologists
• Social Workers
• Counsellors 
• and Psychotherapists.

We also have a Consultant Psychiatrist within the service.