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Create a life you love.

Call Us - 423.212.3296

You've come to the right place

You are more sensitive than others.  You easily get upset, and it takes a while for you to calm down.  Your emotions are intense.  They come out of the blue, and hit you like a tidal wave.  They’re incredibly painful.  It feels like they’ll never end.  You feel stuck on an emotional rollercoaster from hell, and you can’t get off.

Criticism or rejection devastates you.  It’s hard to bounce back.  You worry that your friends secretly hate you.  A lot of the time, you hate you.  Sometimes, you don’t even know who “you” really are.  You can feel empty and lost.

 

You don’t know how to deal with these overwhelming feelings.  As a result, you do things to cope that you later regret.  In the moment, you don’t know what else to do.

 

You’ve tried to get help.  Nothing seems to work.  “Talk therapy” doesn’t cut it.  Medications don’t do the trick.  Self-help books are garbage.  At this point, you’d do anything to have a different life.  To be different.  To feel different.

 

Well.  You’ve finally come to the right place.  We work with people just like you. In fact, we LOVE working with people just like you.  It’s our passion.  We help you to create a life that you love.

How does DBT Help?

DBT specifically helps the “emotionally colorful” people of this world, or the “emotionally thin-skinned” folks out there. It treats those of us who have intense, painful emotions that feel out of control.  Here at Chattanooga DBT, we devote ourselves to providing the highest quality DBT to adults and teens who have difficulty managing their emotions.

 

Here’s the thing.  DBT is unique and unlike any other treatment out there.  It also really works.  It’s very hands-on, practical, and skills-based.  You will learn skills to help you tolerate distress, improve your relationships, and better manage your emotions.

DBT is a comprehensive treatment program that is all about helping you create a life you love.  Unlike therapies that are focused primarily on change, DBT emphasizes both acceptance and change.  We want to teach you how to fully accept yourself in every moment, while at the very same time working toward making the changes you want.  As your DBT therapist, we also agree to fully accept you in every moment, while helping you change in the ways that you want.  We always assume that you are doing the very best you can, AND that you want to do better.

 

In DBT, you will be in weekly individual therapy, weekly skills group, and have access to your therapist 24/7 for phone coaching.  At Chattanooga DBT, all therapists are part of a consultation team of other experts in DBT and meet every week.  This makes sure that your treatment is top notch.  Once you have a couple sessions with us to really make sure it’s the right fit, you’ll be asked for a 6-month minimum commitment.  This is length of time the research shows you minimally need to make real change, and also the length of time it takes to learn each skill once.  Most people find DBT to be so helpful that they want to stay with us longer than the initial 6 months, but that’s entirely up to you.

The DBT Model

DBT Skills Groups

DBT skills group is one of the most important parts of DBT.  In addition to your weekly individual therapy sessions, you will be in skills group for 90 minutes per week.  At Chattanooga DBT, you will learn all sorts of skills to help you create a life you love.  Skills group is more like a class than what you might think of as a “therapy group”.  We don’t sit around and process our feelings or vent about our stressors.  Instead, you will be taught concrete skills and shown how to use them in your life.  You’ll be guided through skills practice, and have weekly homework.  In DBT skills group, you’ll be learning skills alongside others just like you.  There’s 4 specific DBT skill sets that you’ll learn over the course of 6 months: mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness.  

Individual Therapy

In DBT, you’ll be in weekly 50-minute individual therapy sessions. During that time, we work together to identify “target behaviors” for you to work on.  Target behaviors are the thoughts, feelings, or behaviors that get in the way of your best life (e.g., suicidal thoughts, anger outbursts, dissociation, worry).  You will complete a diary card daily that tracks your target behaviors and skill use throughout the week.  We focus on each target until it changes in a way you feel satisfied.  DBT individual therapy is highly tailored to your specific needs.  It is very important to be in individual therapy with an intensively trained DBT therapist, like one of us at Chattanooga DBT, to get the full benefits of DBT.

Phone Coaching

In DBT, you get access to your therapist 24/7 for skills coaching.  This means you can call or text your therapist anytime to get coaching in the very moment you need it.  In DBT, we know that all of therapy doesn’t actually occur in therapy.  The most important part is that you’re able to make real changes in your life.  Phone coaching helps you to apply the skills that you’re learning specifically to your life.  This is where real change occurs.

Free Phone Consultation

 Schedule a free 15 minute
telephone consultation to see if DBT
is right for you!

Schedule a time here:

FREE CONSULTATION

 
Tel: ‪423.212.3296‬
Email: chattanoogadbt@gmail.com
Fax: 423.509.8261

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Success Stories

"When I first met Arianne I was a shell of a person, living life on autopilot, struggling with deep depression and feeling disconnected from my family.  I knew I wanted something different out of life, but didn't know what steps to take in order to obtain a happier me.  Thankfully, Arianne was able to see my struggle, help me develop life goals and open my eyes to a wonderful life worth living.  Through DBT, I was able to to learn new life skills, live life in the moment and create deeper, more meaningful connections with my loved ones.  All the while, I was able to have Arianne walking along side me teaching me how to use those skills in my everyday life.  I am truly blessed to have been able to take this journey with Arianne.  She will always have a special place in my heart.  She truly saved my life." ~Sarah

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