Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT therapy) in Oklahoma City focuses on essential skills such as distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness. Through mindfulness practices and engaging skills groups, individuals can learn to manage their emotions and improve their relationships.
DBT Skills Group for Emotional Regulation
DBT Skills Groups can be life-changing for anyone who struggles with big emotions, impulsive behaviors, or relationship stress, not just those with a Borderline Personality Disorder diagnosis. You don’t need a label to benefit from learning effective coping strategies through DBT therapy. The only requirement is that you’re also working with an individual therapist.
These skills groups are psychoeducational, not traditional group therapy. This means we focus on learning and practicing practical skills related to distress tolerance, emotion regulation, interpersonal effectiveness, and mindfulness that can be applied to your real-life situations. While group members may share the context behind the skills they need, the focus is not on deep emotional processing or rehashing trauma.
In DBT Skills Group, we cover four key areas:
1) Emotion Regulation
Why do emotions feel so big sometimes? What are emotions trying to tell us? When do we ride the wave, and when do we use opposite action?
2) Interpersonal Effectiveness
How do we ask for what we need while still respecting others? How do we maintain boundaries, build healthy relationships, and let go of toxic ones?
3) Distress Tolerance
How do we survive intense emotions or stress without making things worse? What can we do instead of acting impulsively when everything feels overwhelming?
4) Mindfulness
How do we stay present when our brain wants to live in the past or future? How can we observe our thoughts without getting swallowed by them?
Group Logistics:
Skills groups are closed groups of around eight members. This means that individuals cannot pop in and out as they please (like an AA group where anyone can attend). Skills groups meet every week for 90 minutes and are contracted in 6-month cycles, though many members choose to attend the group for 12-18 months.
Group Fees: Skills groups are $50/week. Note: These are psychoeducational groups and are not billed through insurance.
Weekend intensives are available upon request for individuals, caregivers, or families who want a more focused, condensed skills experience. These intensives are a great option for those with limited weekly availability or those looking to support a loved one in DBT.
To inquire about upcoming group availability, reach out to Hannah directly at hannahbarneslcsw@gmail.com. Once confirmed, you’ll be sent a Group Registration Form.
DBT/MBT Skills Group for Antisocial Features
This group is designed for adults who notice antisocial traits in themselves (deceitfulness, impulsivity, aggression, and/or a lack of remorse or guilt), and are genuinely interested in changing the pattern (not just checking a box).
Dialectical Behavior Therapy / Mentalization-Based Therapy fusion:
Mentalization is the ability to understand your own and others' thoughts, feelings, and intentions, making sense of behavior by considering that person's internal mental state.
DBT Skills keep your body and emotions regulated enough to think clearly and make intentional decisions.
Content:
We will look at how quickly your brain reads threat in other people’s faces, tone, and behavior, and how often that snap judgment is wrong, costly, or limiting. The work isn’t about being “softer.” It’s about being more accurate and less controlled by old survival habits.
We will learn to separate emotion from meaning, and practice holding more than one possibility at a time.
Using DBT tools to slow the jump from trigger → assumption → action, we will work on staying in the driver’s seat long enough to choose our reactions, instead of defaulting to fight, flight, or shut-down.
Looking honestly at how our behavior lands, we will explore what people actually remember about us and how to repair damage without feeling like you’re losing yourself.
This is a structured skills group that focuses on discussion and community without shame.
Group Logistics:
This group takes place weekly for 60 minutes and will have a cohort of six to eight members. New members can join as spots open.
Fees- Skills groups are $50/week. (Note- These are psychoeducational groups and are not billable through insurance).
Requirements- You must be working with an individual therapist to join the group and all members must be attending group voluntarily (not for court-mandated referrals).
To inquire about upcoming group availability, reach out to Hannah directly at hannahbarneslcsw@gmail.com. Once confirmed, you’ll be sent a Group Registration Form.
Making Sense of Your Worth Group
Making Sense of Your Worth is an eight-week group designed to help you build positive self-worth and healthy attachment through techniques such as DBT therapy, which emphasizes distress tolerance and emotion regulation.
Low self-worth doesn’t always manifest as low confidence; it can appear as people-pleasing, burnout, shame, perfectionism, fear of rejection, emotional shutdown, or the struggle to believe you deserve more. Unknowingly, our sense of worth influences how we establish boundaries, parent, lead, love, and heal. Mindfulness plays a key role in recognizing these patterns and creating change.
This group offers a safe space to gently explore the origins of these beliefs and initiate the process of replacing old shame narratives with truth, self-compassion, and hope. Participants will engage in psychoeducation, guided reflection, crafts, creative activities, and have opportunities for interpersonal effectiveness through sharing.
Over the eight-week program, we explore:
- Attachment
- Met and unmet needs
- Physical safety and felt safety
- Adverse childhood experiences
- Lies we’ve been told (and internalized)
- The shame we carry
- Finding and befriending our true selves
- Replacing lies with truth
- Forgiveness (of self and others)
Group Logistics:
The group runs for 8 consecutive weeks, and each session is 2 hours long. To ensure safety and connection, the group is limited to 8 members. All materials are included.
Group Cost:
$30 registration fee (covers program book + materials). $400 program fee - Pay in full ($360 with a 10% discount) or pay weekly: $50/week for 8 weeks. Note: These are psychoeducational groups and are not billed through insurance.
To inquire about upcoming group availability, reach out to Hannah directly at hannahbarneslcsw@gmail.com. Once confirmed, you’ll receive a Group Registration Form.
This program was created by Cindy R. Lee in partnership with HALO Project International and is used with full attribution.