DBT Skills for Trauma: LGBTQ Group Therapy
LGBT Trauma Therapy
It’s more and more important that people have specific and safe communities to connect, heal trauma, and learn new skills. DBT Skills for Trauma: LGBTQ Group Therapy offers exactly this; a safe community, LGBTQ-affirming therapy, and coping skills for trauma healing.
DBT skills for trauma teaches LGBTQ people how to regulate distress, how to communicate their boundaries and needs, how to pursue their core values in their day to day life, and how to get grounded and centered amidst chaotic times.
DBT Skills for Trauma is vital for surviving a traumatic environment and ongoing collective trauma, while also helping us connect to our communities and contribute in ways that reflect our values.
With LGBTQ Group Therapy, LGBTQ people have a safe and affirming community where they can process stress and trauma, and learn coping skills to heal trauma with others who truly understand them and share their experience in the world.
DBT Skills for Trauma is a very effective set tools for LGBTQ people to use for coping with trauma symptoms. I am leading an online DBT skill group for LGBTQ that will help heal trauma in a safe and validating community.
LGBT Trauma Therapy
LGBT Trauma Therapy starts with LGBT-affirming therapy, an LGBT-affirming trauma therapist who creates a safe and supportive space that honors LGBT identity.
As well, LGBT Trauma Therapy offers insight in how societal prejudice and oppressive systems compound individual trauma, and applies LGBT trauma therapy directly to these experiences and trauma triggers.
By combining DBT therapy for trauma and LGBT trauma therapy, we help the LGBT community repair trauma specific to their experience living as an LGBT person in an oppressive society.
LGBTQ Religious Trauma Therapy
One common LGBT Trauma Therapy topic is LGBT religious trauma. LGBT religious trauma is traumatic experiences in the context of religious structure, religious systems, religious pressures, and religious doctrine.
For many, LGBT religious trauma involved communities with leaders denouncing and denying their identity, ostracizing them from the community, or engaging in abusive practices like conversion therapy.
LGBT religious trauma can be very impactful, and deserves specialized trauma therapy.
LGBTQ Religious Trauma Therapy directly targets religious trauma, and helps LGBTQ people process this trauma effectively. LGBTQ Religious Trauma Therapy also reconnects LGBTQ people to safe and affirming communities.
LGBTQ Religious Trauma Therapy affirms LGBTQ identity, and helps dismantle internalized homophobia, transphobia, biphobia so LGBTQ clients can be free and expressive about who they are.
LGBTQ Religious Trauma Therapy not only identifies and clarifies community-based prejudice and contextualizes religious trauma and religious abuse in these systems; LGBTQ people are not to blame for the actions of abusive religious communities.
LGBTQ Group Therapy
LGBTQ Group Therapy is a highly effective way to build community, learn coping skills for trauma, and experience affirming therapy with an affirming group.
I am leading a DBT Skill Group specifically for LGBTQ people online, where people will learn and practice DBT skills for trauma in a safe and affirming group.
We can feel really isolated in our world, and trying to manage overwhelming emotions can be tricky. When oppressive powers amplify, anyone impacted can experience high stress, intense emotional pain and shut down.
We can feel alone or broken, but you are NOT alone!
Connect to our beautiful community to build skills to manage painful emotions and connect to personal values. You will walk away from this group already practicing skills daily in your life and connecting to meaningful relationships.
Learn more about this group here.
Is group not for you? I also offer LGBTQ affirming trauma therapy one-on-one as well. To learn more about my approach, click here. If you’re ready to start right now, book a session with me here.
You can also try out my other online group offer: Group Therapy for Trauma to connect with a supportive community and learn helpful trauma coping skills from home.
LGBTQ religious trauma therapy
Is DBT good for trauma?
DBT trauma therapy is very good for trauma. What I like about DBT trauma therapy is that it teaches us easy-to-use DBT skills on how to manage really painful trauma symptoms like flashbacks, trauma triggers, and avoidance.
DBT trauma therapy also teaches us how to reclaim what matters to us and center that in our lives. We can do that without actually having to engage in any trauma processing.
We might choose to do trauma processing at some time, but you don’t have to do any trauma processing to heal from trauma and feel a change. DBT trauma therapy does exactly this!
A key component to DBT trauma therapy is learning the core DBT skills. Typically, this is done in a group therapy setting, where people can learn from each other and practice DBT skills with each other in the moment.
What are the DBT skills?
The DBT skills include four main components: Mindfulness, Distress Tolerance, Emotion Regulation, and Interpersonal Effectiveness.
DBT Mindfulness Skills
This is where people learn skills to stay grounded and present in the moment. DBT Mindfulness skills include how to be present when living daily life especially times when we need to focus or want to experience more peace and joy; how to assess your body sensations, thoughts, and emotions; and how to identify external factors to understand what's going on and what coping skill to use at any given time. DBT Mindfulness skills also teaches us how to practice non-judgmental stance, how to identify and let go of judgments we have about ourselves and the world.
DBT Mindfulness skills are vital for trauma healing as they help us know what’s going on inside of us and helps us handle these trauma symptoms as they arise. With DBT Mindfulness skills we can see a flashback building, a trigger getting activated, and take care of our needs when that happens.
DBT Distress Tolerance skills
DBT Distress Tolerance skills are concrete coping skills for being able to regulate times of acute distress or emotional crisis.
The DBT Distress Tolerance skills include how to soothe and regulate our senses, how to effectively distract our mind so we don’t act impulsively, how to get through a painful moment, and how to connect to a bigger picture and get perspective on our life.
DBT Distress Tolerance skills are important for supporting trauma healing by helping people reduce stress and anxiety, and manage upsetting experiences like flashbacks and triggers.
Part of distress tolerance skills is also radical acceptance skills. This is not to be confused with simply allowing something to happen or disengaging from change. Radical Acceptance skills are about knowing what is in our control, and what isn’t, and how we need to move forward given our values and goals. I can radically accept that I cannot make significant change to state or federal prejudicial laws against my LGBTQ community, and then move my energy and effort to mobilize in my local community, connect with local LGBTQ supports, and contribute to changing city policy and social culture.
Radical acceptance is a helpful skill with trauma processing by helping us move through the parts of our trauma that get us stuck, grieve, and move forward toward our life worth living goals.
DBT Emotion Regulation skills
DBT Emotion regulation skills are skills we use to understand our emotions and what our day-to-day emotions feel like. DBT Emotion Regulation skills also help with problem solving skills and taking care of our emotions as they occur.
With the DBT Emotion Regulation Skills is also the Life-worth-living skills. DBT Life-worth-living skills are skills that help us build a life that is worth living! One that is aligned with our personal core values, has space for joy, and takes care of our needs. Through these skills, we move from just surviving and into creating a life that really matters to us and really truly is ours.
Emotion Regulation skills helps with trauma recovery by helping us identify and know our feelings much better, use coping skills when needed, and reclaim a life that isn’t blocked by trauma triggers.
DBT Interpersonal Effectiveness skills -
The skills in Interpersonal Effectiveness are all around communication and relationship skills. Altogether, these skills work really well for accessing the social support that we know is one of the main predictors of a successful trauma recovery. Interpersonal effectiveness skills also teaches us helpful conflict resolution, how to set boundaries, and how to show up for our relationships.
Many people with trauma experience isolation from their relationships, especially if their trauma occurred within relationships. Interpersonal Effectiveness skills helps rebuild these vital connections and teach us how to share more about ourselves with others, and hold boundaries that maybe previously were crossed or violated.
Many time people hesitate to start group therapy because they are worried their identity may not be accepted, affirmed, or may be outright attacked. This leaves a lot of people with marginalized identities without therapeutic communities they can feel safe and connected with.
This adds more stress when people are looking for a supportive community for trauma healing.
LGBT Trauma Therapy
DBT Skills for Trauma: LGBTQ Group Therapy
DBT Skills for Trauma: LGBTQ Group Therapy is a highly effective way to build community, learn coping skills for trauma, and experience affirming therapy with an affirming group.
I am leading a DBT Skill Group specifically for LGBTQ people online, where people will learn and practice DBT skills for trauma in a safe and affirming group.
You are NOT alone!
Learn more about this group here.
Is group not for you? I also offer LGBTQ affirming trauma therapy one-on-one as well. To learn more about my approach, click here. If you’re ready to start right now, book a session with me here.
You can also try out my other online group offer: Group Therapy for Trauma to connect with a supportive community and learn helpful trauma coping skills from home.
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