DBT Skills Training as a Treatment Strategy for Female Survivors of Human Trafficking

Abstract

This paper will include suggestions for the first six group sessions using Dialectical Behavior Therapy for adults who were victims of sex trafficking in their youth. Group therapy involving DBT primarily focuses on skills training in the areas of distress tolerance, mindfulness, interpersonal skills and emotional regulation. DBT stresses the didactic of acceptance and change, purporting that for change to be lasting and meaning one must first accept things as they are without judgment and without making attempts to avoid pain or discomfort. By helping adults understand the ways in which they are in control of their emotional and intellectual functioning, and to which degree they give up control when trying to avoid pain, the hope is to build upon the strengths that they already have, enable them to tolerate the realities of their experiences and to assist them in creating new and healthier thoughts, emotions and behaviors that will bring about new understandings of past events and for events that they will struggle with in the future.