Treating Trauma in Dialectical Behavior Therapy

Book excerpt: Many DBT clients suffer from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but until now the field has lacked a formal, tested protocol for exactly when and how to treat trauma within DBT. Combining the power of two leading evidence-based therapies--and designed to meet the needs of high-risk, severely impaired clients--this groundbreaking manual integrates DBT with an adapted version of prolonged exposure (PE) therapy for PTSD. Melanie S. Harned shows how to implement the DBT PE protocol with DBT clients who have achieved the safety and stability needed to engage in trauma-focused treatment. In a convenient large-size format, the book includes session-by-session guidelines, rich case examples, clinical tips, and 35 reproducible handouts and forms that can be downloaded and printed for repeated use.