• Group Leadersdialectical Behavioral Training Techniques
• Group Leadersdialectical Behavioral Training Relias
• Dialectical Behavioral Therapy Certification

Hope Riley, Ph.D. Is a licensed psychologist in private practice with more than 35 years experience teaching Group Processes. Her expertise teaching about the invisible rules that govern behavior teach clients to generate behavioral options which increase group performance and personal power to. The first stage of group development is the forming stage. This stage presents a time where the group is just starting to come together and is described with anxiety and uncertainty. Members are discreet with their behavior, which is driven by their desire to be accepted by all members of the group.

A team of doctoral level professionals with expertise teaching group processes designs an experience for your organization in real time.

OUR FOUNDER

Jeffrey F. Wolper, Ph.D., founder and director of The Wolper Institute for Group Learning, is a licensed psychologist with more than 35 years experience teaching and providing corporate consulting.

The Leadership and Authority Workshop is Dr. Wolper’s flagship program, which he regularly teaches for the United States Department of State at the Foreign Service Institute as well as a variety of private corporate groups and educational institutions.

He has also designed related courses such as Team Development and Leadership, and Group Dynamics. As a result of the program’s success, Dr. Wolper received an invitation to bring his program to the United States Consulate in Frankfurt, Germany January 24-27, 2017.

Dr. Wolper has been teaching Group Dynamics at The Wharton School of Business for more than 30 years and is director of the Group Process Course at the Lauder Institute at the Wharton School of Business, where all new students start their tenure by taking his course.

He also teaches the course at The Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. Dr. Wolper earned his Ph.D. and MS degrees at The University of Pennsylvania and completed his undergraduate degree at La Salle University.

MEET THE TEAM

Deborah Kossmann, Psy.D.

Deborah Kossmann, Psy.D. is a clinical psychologist who has been in private practice with offices in Langhorne and Haverford, PA since 1989.

Dr. Kossmann earned her B.A. in English in 1982 from Arcadia University, an M.Ed. in Counseling from Temple University in 1989 and an M.A. (1993) and Psy.D. (1994) from Widener University. Prior to earning her psychology degrees, Dr. Kossmann worked in marketing and public relations at the Philadelphia Zoo and KYW Newsradio.

She has been an adjunct professor in the graduate counseling programs at both Chestnut Hill and Rosemont Colleges and has led trainings and workshops on a variety of topics. She was an alumni trustee on the board of Arcadia University for five years.

She is currently a Fellow of the Pennsylvania Psychological Association (PPA) and served for six years on the Board of the Pennsylvania Psychological Foundation (PPF), a charitable arm of PPA. She continues to serve on the PPF Education Award Scholarship Committee and is currently a member of PPA’s Ethics Committee.

Dr. Kossmann is also a Member of the Philadelphia Society of Clinical Psychologists. Her articles and poetry have won awards and have appeared in national publications including The New York Times and The Psychotherapy Networker.

Hope Riley, Ph.D.

Hope Riley, Ph.D. is a licensed psychologist in private practice with more than 35 years experience teaching Group Processes. Her expertise teaching about the invisible rules that govern behavior teach clients to generate behavioral options which increase group performance and personal power to achieve goals.

Dr. Riley teaches Group Dynamics at US Department of State Foreign Service Institute, The Lauder Institute at Wharton, and The Tuck School of Business. Additional faculty positions have included the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, The Wharton School, The Philadelphia University of the Arts, and the Wyoming Valley Family Practice Residency Program.

She is co-founder of Seismic Consulting Group where she trains managers to increase productivity by accessing and harnessing their organization’s most powerful resources.

Dr. Riley received her BA degree from Dickinson College, and her Masters and Doctorate degrees from the University of Pennsylvania. She is a graduate of the Family Therapy Institute of Philadelphia and is certified as an EMDR therapist.

Howard Friedman, Ph.D.

Howard A. Friedman, Ph.D., is a psychologist, in private practice of psychotherapy & organizational consultation. He serves as an adjunct instructor at New York University, Dept. of Applied Psychology. He is a member of the LGBT Study Group at the William Alanson White Institute, and of the Eastern Group Psychotherapy Society.

Dr. Friedman worked in the New York City public schools for 32 years, where he helped start a school and worked as a teacher, school psychologist, and school change facilitator.

He is Past President of the NY Center for the Study of Groups, an affiliate of the A.K. Rice Institute for the Study of Social Systems (AKRI) and is a Fellow of AKRI. He and his wife have two adult children and live in Manhattan.

Jennifer Lee, Ph.D.

Dr. Jennifer Lee is a Clinical Psychologist and Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology at Soka University in Southern California. She teaches and mentors students in the social and behavioral sciences, and she designed an experiential course on group dynamics for the undergraduate program.

Dr. Lee has been actively involved with the group relations community for the past 15 years. She is a certified group consultant with the A.K. Rice Institute for the Study of Social Systems and has consulted at conferences both nationally and internationally.

She earned her undergraduate degree from Cornell University and her doctorate in clinical psychology from Teachers College, Columbia University.

Matthew Graziano, MSW, Ph.D.

Dr. Graziano is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology and Family Therapy at Seton Hall University. His clinical work includes group psychotherapy interventions, comprehensive neuropsychological evaluations, as well as large scale clinical and educational interventions with children, adolescents, emerging adults, and adults.

Dr. Graziano uses methods of Narrative Analysis in his research, which has been presented at conferences nationally and internationally. His work has been published in the journals Narrative Inquiry and The Journal of Homosexuality.

His clinical service includes Baruch College, the Chapin School, the Child Mind Institute, the Department of State, Foreign Service Institute, the Hudson County- New Jersey Public School System, the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) Charter Schools, New York University, the Rutgers University Institute for Children and Families, and the School at Columbia University.

Dr. Graziano holds his Bachelor of Arts in English, Art History, and Humanities from the University of Colorado at Boulder; Master of Social Work from Rutgers University-New Brunswick; and his Doctor of Philosophy in Counseling Psychology from New York University. He is a licensed psychologist in New York and New Jersey.

Marc R. Kossmann, Psy.D.

Dr. Marc Kossmann is a clinical psychologist licensed in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Kentucky, and Michigan. He provides clinical services in these states via the Doctor On Demand telemedicine platform.

Dr. Kossmann works with adults on a number of different specialty areas including goal planning, life transition, stress management and Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction. His expertise in group process roots back to graduate school.

He also continues to study various methodologies for teaching group processes and participates through teaching at the Foreign Service Institute at the United States Department of State.

He obtained his doctorate in psychology from The Institute for Graduate Clinical Psychology at Widener University and has worked with multiple groups on developing leadership and authoritative skills since joining the Wolper Institute team. Dr. Kossmann is bilingual in English and Italian.

Nan Schiowitz, Ph.D.

Group Leadersdialectical Behavioral Training Techniques

Dr. Schiowitz is a licensed psychologist with over thirty years of clinical experience. She is a founding member of the The Brandywine Center, a private practice group in Wilmington Delaware, where she provides individual and group therapy, workshops, and consultation.

She applies her own special blend of accelerated dynamic and interpersonal therapy methods, warmth and humor to her work with clients. Her passion for group work began at the University of Pennsylvania where she developed her expertise, and began consulting to Wharton and Graduate Education Students enrolled in the Group Process course.

Additional training in Systems Centered Therapy honed her skills in using group-as-a-whole interventions to help group members learn about authority and responsibility, build connection, and learn about themselves in relation to unconscious group dynamics.

Dr. Schiowitz received her Ph.D. and M.S. degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, and a BS in Social Work from Cornell University.

Assessment | Biopsychology | Comparative |Cognitive | Developmental | Language | Individual differences |Personality | Philosophy | Social |
Methods | Statistics |Clinical | Educational | Industrial |Professional items |World psychology |

Clinical:Approaches · Group therapy · Techniques · Types of problem · Areas of specialism · Taxonomies · Therapeutic issues · Modes of delivery · Model translation project · Personal experiences ·

Dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) is a psychosocial treatment developed by Marsha M. Linehan specifically to treat individuals with Borderline personality disorder. While DBT was designed for individuals with Borderline personality disorder, it is used for patients with other diagnoses as well.

The treatment itself is based largely in behaviorist theory with some cognitive therapy elements as well. There are two essential parts of the treatment, and without either of these parts the therapy is not considered 'DBT adherent.'

1. An individual component in which the therapist and client discuss issues that come up during the week following a treatment target hierarchy. Self-injurious and suicidal behaviors take first priority, followed by therapy interfering behaviors. Then there are quality of life issues and finally working towards improving one's life generally.

During the individual therapy, the therapist and client work towards improving skill use. Often, skills group is discussed and obstacles to acting skillfully are addressed.

2. The group, which ordinarily meets once weekly for about 2-2.5 hours, in which clients learn to use specific skills that are broken down into 4 modules: core mindfulness skills, emotion regulation skills, interpersonal effectiveness skills and distress tolerance skills.

• 1The four modules

The four modules[edit | edit source]

Mindfulness[edit | edit source]

The essential part of all skills taught in skills group are the core mindfulness skills.

Observe, Describe, and Participate are the core mindfulness 'what' skills. They answer the question, 'What do I do to practice core mindfulness skills?'

Non-judgmentally, One-mindfully, and Effectively are the 'how' skills and answer the question, 'How do I practice core mindfulness skills?'

Mindfulness comes from the Buddhist tradition and can be read about in more detail in the book The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh (among others).

Interpersonal Effectiveness[edit | edit source]

Interpersonal response patterns taught in DBT skills training are very similar to those taught in many assertiveness and interpersonal problem-solving classes. They include effective strategies for asking for what one needs, saying no, and coping with interpersonal conflict.

Individuals with Borderline personality disorder frequently possess good interpersonal skills in a general sense. The problems arise in the application of these skills to specific situations. An individual may be able to describe effective behavioral sequences when discussing another person encountering a problematic situation, but may be completely incapable of generating or carrying out a similar behavioral sequence when analyzing his/her own situation.

This module focuses on situations where the objective is to change something (e.g., requesting someone to do something) or to resist changes someone else is trying to make (e.g., saying no). The skills taught are intended to maximize the chances that a person’s goals in a specific situation will be met, while at the same time not damaging either the relationship or the person’s self-respect.

Distress Tolerance[edit | edit source]

Most approaches to mental health treatment focus on changing distressing events and circumstances. They have paid little attention to accepting, finding meaning for, and tolerating distress. This task has generally been tackled by religious and spiritual communities and leaders. Dialectical behavioral therapy emphasizes learning to bear pain skillfully.

Distress tolerance skills constitute a natural development from mindfulness skills. They have to do with the ability to accept, in a non-evaluative and nonjudgmental fashion, both oneself and the current situation. Although the stance advocated here is a nonjudgmental one, this does not mean that it is one of approval: acceptance of reality is not approval of reality.

Distress tolerance behaviors are concerned with tolerating and surviving crises and with accepting life as it is in the moment. Four sets of crisis survival strategies are taught: distracting, self-soothing, improving the moment, and thinking of pros and cons. Acceptance skills include radical acceptance, turning the mind toward acceptance, and willingness versus willfulness.

Emotion Regulation[edit | edit source]

Individuals with Borderline personality disorder and suicidal individuals are emotionally intense and labile – frequently angry, intensely frustrated, depressed, and anxious. This suggests that borderline clients might benefit from help in learning to regulate their emotions. Dialectical behavioral therapy skills for emotion regulation include:

• Identifying and labeling emotions
• Identifying obstacles to changing emotions
• Reducing vulnerability to “emotion mind”
• Increasing positive emotional events
• Increasing mindfulness to current emotions
• Taking opposite action
• Applying distress tolerance techniques

Books[edit | edit source]

• The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hahn ISBN 0807012394
• Skills Training Manual for Treating Borderline Personality Disorder by Marsha M. Linehan ISBN 0898620341

Group Leadersdialectical Behavioral Training Relias

• Cognitive Behavioral Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder by Marsha M. Linehan, 1993

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy Certification

External links[edit | edit source]

• DepersonalizationDisorder.net - A NEW ONLINE SUPPORT COMMUNITY for those who suffer from Depersonalization, Derealization, and Dissociative Disorders: An online FORUM, ARTICLES, SYMPTOMS, CAUSES, LINKS, COPING SKILLS, ARTWORK, STORIES, TREAMENTS, and more can be found on this site.