Deliberate Practice in Dialectical Behavior Therapy

A free training from Sentio University, co-authored by Tali Boritz, Shelley McMain, Tony Rousmaniere, and Alexandre Vaz.

Dialectical behavior therapy asks the therapist to hold two things at once: radical acceptance of where the client is and persistent push toward change. That balance is hard to learn through reading or watching alone, because it shows up in the moment-to-moment language of validation, the pacing of chain analysis, and the timing of dialectical strategies. This page collects Sentio University's free deliberate practice resources for DBT therapists: a full webinar with Tali Boritz and Shelley McMain, two of the field's senior DBT clinicians and researchers, in dialogue with Tony Rousmaniere and Alexandre Vaz. The recording is unedited, free to share, and designed to be paired with a real supervisor, peer, or consultation team.

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What you will learn

This training is structured around five concrete skill targets that supervisors and peer practice groups can rehearse together.

  • How to deliver validation at the right level without sliding into reassurance or losing the dialectical stance
  • How to run a chain analysis that stays useful instead of getting lost in detail
  • How to balance acceptance and change strategies within a single intervention
  • How to fit DBT skill-building into your existing supervision rhythm or consultation team
  • How senior DBT clinicians think about teaching crisis-survival skills to early-career therapists

Watch the webinar

Deliberate Practice in Dialectical Behavior Therapy, with Tali Boritz, Shelley McMain, Tony Rousmaniere, and Alexandre Vaz. Free to share.

This webinar accompanies the APA book Deliberate Practice in Dialectical Behavior Therapy by Boritz, McMain, Vaz, and Rousmaniere, part of The Essentials of Deliberate Practice series. The book contains the full set of exercises demonstrated in the video. Buy on Amazon.

How to use this with peers or supervisors

The webinar is most useful when paired with structured practice afterward. We recommend a two-session model. In the first session, watch the recording with a peer, supervision group, or consultation team and pause at each demonstrated exercise to discuss how it would fit your current caseload. In the second session, run one of the exercises live. One person plays the therapist, one plays the client, and a third observes and offers structured feedback against a specific behavioral target, such as "validates at the right level" or "holds the dialectical stance under pressure." Five to ten minutes of focused rehearsal followed by feedback tends to produce more growth than longer unstructured roleplay. Licensed clinicians who want to take this further can join Sentio's ongoing deliberate practice consultation group, which meets regularly and is open to clinicians worldwide.

Going deeper: Deliberate Practice Supervision

The webinar above demonstrates what deliberate practice looks like inside DBT. Doing deliberate practice supervision well is a separate skill, and one that is hard to acquire from didactic content alone. The method has to be practiced under feedback, the same way the clinical skill itself does. A single weekend workshop tends not to give supervisors enough repetitions to develop the experiential muscle they need. Sentio runs an intensive year-long clinical supervisor training built around this principle. For the longer rationale for that format, see Why One Weekend Supervisor Trainings Fall Short.

About the authors

Tali Boritz, PhD is a psychologist and clinician scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto. Her research focuses on psychotherapy process and outcome, particularly the treatment of borderline personality disorder and complex trauma. Her clinical work integrates DBT, emotion-focused therapy, and relational approaches.

Shelley McMain, PhD is Head of the Borderline Personality Disorder Clinic and a Senior Scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto, and an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto. She was the first Canadian clinician certified by the DBT-Linehan Board of Certification as a DBT individual and group therapist, and is one of the field's leading researchers on treatment for personality disorders and self-harm.

Tony Rousmaniere, PsyD is the President of Sentio University and Executive Director of the Sentio Counseling Center. He is past-president of the psychotherapy division of the American Psychological Association and the author of over 20 books on deliberate practice and psychotherapy training, including The Essentials of Deliberate Practice book series (APA Books).

Alexandre Vaz, PhD is the Chief Academic Officer of Sentio University and co-founder of the Deliberate Practice Institute. He is co-editor of The Essentials of Deliberate Practice book series (APA Books) and host of Psychotherapy Expert Talks.

Related Sentio resources

Frequently asked questions

  • Deliberate practice in Dialectical Behavior Therapy is structured, repetitive rehearsal of specific clinical skills, such as validation at the right level, chain analysis, balancing acceptance and change, and crisis intervention strategies, with feedback from a peer or supervisor. It differs from didactic learning because the therapist actually practices the skill under simulated conditions rather than only studying or discussing it.

  • Licensed clinicians, supervisors, and graduate students who already have some exposure to DBT and want a practical method for building their experiential skills. It is also useful for supervisors who want to introduce deliberate practice into existing group supervision or DBT consultation teams.

  • No. The exercises are designed to be useful at multiple training levels. Therapists earlier in their DBT training tend to get the most value from validation and chain analysis drills. More advanced clinicians can use exercises that integrate dialectical strategies and within-session crisis management.

  • Yes. The webinar is free, unedited, and free to share with colleagues, students, and supervisees. Sentio University is a 501©(3) nonprofit and releases its training resources openly.

  • Standard DBT intensives teach the model and protocol. Deliberate practice trains the skill. The two are complementary. This webinar shows how to add rehearsal-based skill building to the training pathways most clinicians already use, including intensive and DBT-LBC certification programs.