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Training with Talking Therapies UK


At Talking Therapies UK, we are passionate about equipping professionals with the knowledge, confidence, and compassion to support mental health across diverse settings. With decades of combined experience in clinical practice, public health leadership, and service transformation, our training programmes are rooted in evidence-based approaches and real-world application.

We specialise in delivering high-impact, trauma-informed mental health training tailored to the needs of health, education, social care, and voluntary sector teams. From safeguarding and suicide prevention to emotional resilience and therapeutic communication, our courses are designed to empower practitioners at every level—whether you’re frontline staff, a strategic commissioner, or part of a multi-agency partnership.

Our facilitators bring many years clinical expertise , and a deep understanding of the social determinants of mental health. We prioritise co-production, reflective practice, and inclusive learning environments that foster curiosity, empathy, and professional growth.

Whether you’re looking to upskill your workforce, embed mental health into your organisational culture, or meet statutory training requirements, we offer flexible delivery formats including in-person workshops, webinars, and bespoke consultancy.

Together, we can build psychologically safe, responsive systems that promote wellbeing, reduce inequalities, and improve outcomes for individuals, families, and communities. Let’s shape the future of mental health—one conversation, one training, one transformation at a time..

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Talking Therapies UK
Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) Informed Practice · Foundation

DBT Foundations: Theory and Mindfulness

The biosocial theory, dialectics and the core mindfulness skills

Dialectical Behaviour Therapy began where other treatments were failing, with clients whose emotions arrived faster, harder and longer than anyone had taught them to manage, and it remains the most influential answer the field has produced. This foundation course teaches DBT from first principles for clinicians, skills trainers and trainees, assuming no prior DBT experience. The first module builds the theoretical ground: Linehan's biosocial theory, in which pervasive emotion dysregulation grows from the transaction between a vulnerable nervous system and an invalidating environment, taught with the compassion and precision that make it, delivered well, the treatment's first intervention. You will study the founding dialectic of acceptance and change, validation as a technology with levels rather than a warmth to be hoped for, and the structure of a full DBT programme, including the consultation team that treats the therapist. The second module teaches core mindfulness as DBT actually trains it: wise mind located experientially between reasonable mind and emotion mind, the what skills of observe, describe and participate, and the how skills of non-judgemental, one-mindful and effective practice, the anchoring capacities on which every later skill depends. Substantial written lessons with key points and practice tasks that put the concepts to work, with a study tutor throughout, a final assessment, and a personalised certificate on passing. The ground floor of the whole DBT pathway, built properly.
▶ See inside the digital classroom1 minute 36 seconds · how a course is laid out, how each lesson is taught, and how the tutor helps
Before you start

This is a Foundation course in the DBT skills pathway. It assumes nothing: it is written for someone meeting the approach for the first time. What it adds is the working model, its vocabulary and its evidence base, so that the Practitioner course can assume them; it revisits the foundations only as far as it needs to before building on them, so it does not repeat the course below.

When you have completed it, DBT Skills: Distress Tolerance and Emotion Regulation is the next step in the pathway.

The DBT skills pathway. The skills themselves, module by module, for those who will teach or deliver them: theory and core mindfulness, then distress tolerance and emotion regulation, then interpersonal effectiveness and the delivery of skills groups. A different pathway from DBT-informed practice: take this one to deliver the skills, the other to practise in their light.

13.5 study hours13.5 CPD hours certified6 months of accessAI tutor in every lessonCertificate on completion (pass mark 70%)

What you will be able to do

✓Explain dialectics as DBT's philosophical engine: thesis, antithesis and synthesis in clinical form
✓Describe the biosocial model and use it to make dysregulation comprehensible and non-blaming
✓Teach the mindfulness 'what' skills: observe, describe and participate
✓Teach the mindfulness 'how' skills: non-judgementally, one-mindfully and effectively
✓Explain wise mind and coach clients to find it
✓Structure skills teaching: didactic, practice, feedback and homework

What you will study

Module 1: Theory and stance
The biosocial theory, dialectics and the shape of a DBT programme.
  • The biosocial theory Emotional vulnerability
  • Dialectics and programme structure Acceptance and change held together
  • The DBT Treatment Hierarchy and the Central Role of Validation in the Therapist’s Stance The DBT treatment hierarchy orders client goals into three tiers: life‑threatening behaviours, therapy‑interfering behaviours, and quality‑of‑life behaviours.
  • The Four Modes and Stages of DBT: Integrating Structure with the Biosocial Theory DBT delivers treatment through four interdependent modes: individual therapy, skills training group, telephone coaching, and therapist consultation team.
  • The DBT Consultation Team: Structure, Functions, and Maintaining Therapist Effectiveness The DBT consultation team provides validation and support for therapists, reducing burnout and secondary trauma.
Module 2: Core mindfulness
The states of mind and the what and how skills that underpin every module.
  • The three states of mind Reasonable mind
  • The what and how skills Observe, describe, participate
  • The Mindful Stance: Cultivating an Attitude of Acceptance, Curiosity and Non‑Judgment Acceptance means acknowledging experience as it is, without attempting to change it in the moment.
  • Accessing Wise Mind: Bridging the Gap Wise Mind is the synthesis of Reasonable Mind and Emotion Mind, representing the 'middle path' between extremes.
Module 3: Validation and the dialectical stance
Validation taught as a technology with six levels, invalidation including the kind practitioners deliver accidentally, the two communication styles, and what dialectics actually requires of a practitioner.
  • Validation: the six levels Validation in DBT is a technology rather than a warmth, and it is the direct counterpart of the mechanism the biosocial theory describes
  • Invalidation, including your own Invalidation is the communication that a person's private experience is wrong or not to be taken seriously, and it is frequently delivered with complete kindness
  • Reciprocal and irreverent communication Reciprocal communication is the default and comprises responsiveness, self-disclosure about the immediate relationship, warmth and genuineness
  • What dialectics actually requires The central dialectic holds both halves at full strength rather than compromising between them: this makes complete sense, and it has to change
Module 4: The structure that makes it work
The four modes and what each is for, the target hierarchy that decides what to work on, the commitment strategies, the diary card and chain analysis, and the consultation team.
  • The four modes Individual therapy applies the skills to this week; the skills class teaches; between-session coaching generalises; the consultation team treats the therapist
  • The target hierarchy Life-threatening behaviour, then therapy-interfering behaviour, then quality-of-life-interfering behaviour, with skills acquisition throughout
  • Commitment, and why it takes four sessions Pre-treatment is a stage rather than an assessment, and a commitment obtained in twenty minutes will not survive the fourth month
  • The diary card and chain analysis The card is reviewed first every session; an incomplete card is information and is therapy-interfering behaviour rather than a failure
  • The consultation team The team is a mode of therapy whose patient is the therapist, and its functions are keeping the therapist in the frame, treating them, and spreading the burden
Module 5: Mindfulness in practice, and where the treatment fits
Teaching core mindfulness to people who cannot sit still, running the skills class, the states of mind applied in a real crisis, and an honest account of the evidence, the adaptations and the scope.