DBT Training Australia has been established by a small group of clinicians who want to enable the implementation and delivery of high quality DBT services in Australia.

DBT Training Australia is an international affiliate of the US based Linehan Institute. The Linehan Instituite was established by Dr Marsha Linehan with the goals of making compassionate and effective treatments available to all persons with complex and severe mental disorders. Behavioral Tech, LLC, is the company aligned with The Linehan Institute to provide training in DBT and related treatments. DBT Training Australia offers training in collaboration and under licence from Behavioral Tech.

We made a video of part of our Launch event in March 2023. Click here to watch it.

Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), developed by Marsha Linehan, Ph.D., at the University of Washington, is a comprehensive cognitive-behavioural treatment for borderline personality disorder (BPD) and other complex 'multi-diagnostic' problems related to emotion dysregulation.  DBT is especially effective for those with chronic suicidal or other severe, dysfunctional behaviours. Research has shown DBT to be effective in reducing suicidal behaviour, psychiatric hospitalisation, drop out from treatment, substance abuse, anger and interpersonal difficulties. Read more about  DBT  here.

As DBT training and consultation providers, we are unable to make recommendations about individuals or services offering DBT or other treatments to healthcare users. If you are wanting to access health care services, including DBT, we recommend you contact your primary healthcare provider or your local community mental health service to discuss your needs. They often have knowledge about services in the area that provide DBT programmes or individual practitioners who have experience in this therapy.

See our Links page.

DBT Training Australia offers training in DBT. Participants who fully complete the course of training will receive a certificate of attendance to note this. Participants who partially complete training can request a letter annotating their partial attendance.

We do not offer a qualification in DBT. To our knowledge there are no recognized tertiary providers in Australia who offer well-recognized DBT qualifications.

Currently the ‘gold standard’ of DBT practice is certification as someone who has been evaluated to be capable of providing the treatment to a high standard. We fully endorse the Linehan Board of Certification (LBC) process as the only certification process we know of that follows independently established principles of certification and reviews actual work samples. See our FAQ on the LBC of more information. DBT Training Australia training can satisfy some of the essential prerequisites for the LBC certification process.

Training offered directly by DBT Training Australia has been developed by Dr Linehan, Behavioral Tech and other DBT experts. It is made available to us through our International Affiliate relationship with the Linehan Institute and our partnership with Behavioral Tech, LLC.

In 2014, the US-based DBT-Linehan Board of Certification (DBT-LBC) program was launched to evaluate individual providers' DBT skills, knowledge, and abilities in order to determine if they are doing DBT from the evidence-based perspective. The DBT-LBC is developed a registry of certified DBT therapists. This will eventually include DBT programs. Clients and their families, mental health professionals, governmental agencies, and insurance companies can use this list to find highly qualified DBT providers.

The DBT-LBC process is the gold standard in establishing DBT competence. While initially a US based initiative, this is becoming the international standard of DBT certification. Currently a few Australian providers have completed LBC certification and we expect this number to grow in the years ahead. Visit the DBT-LBC website for full information about DBT Certification, including all the information you need to prepare, apply, and track the entire process.
Note there are other certification process available in the world yet we know of no others that have adopted such rigourous certification processes, that review clinician work samples or that have the endorsement of Dr Linehan (the developer of DBT). In our opinion, other certification processes do not offer sufficient assurance of DBT competence.

If you sign up to our wesbite we will occasionally send you emails about our trainings. Click here to sign up. You can opt out of emails if you change your mind.

Our shorter training events are available to anyone interested in learning the fundamentals of DBT. It is assumed, but not required, that participants are registered mental health professionals.

First create an account with us: click here to start. Don't forget to confirm your sign-up by clicking the 'confirm' link in the email you receive from us.

Then log in, fill in your details, go to your chosen training page and click the button near the bottom to start signing up. You will receive PDF invoices automatically to your email.

We ask you to set up an account as some of our training requires meeting prerequisite criteria and this needs to be personalized to the applicant. It also forms a record of your prior training with us.

Some of our training will have an option to 'reserve a place' so you can hold a seat while you confirm your funding or availability. This is managed on-line and will be clearly shown when available. The reservation is only available until a certain number of days before the training starts, typically 6 weeks or 2 months. If you have not completed your registration by then, the reservation will expire.

If a training is fully subscribed there may be an option to join a wait list. If this option is avaible it will be marked on the training page.

To join the waitlist you must sign up for our website and proceed with your registration. When the registration is submitted you will receive an email confimring you are on the waitlist. If a place becomes available you will be notified by email. If you are not advised of a place then you are not registered for the training.

If you are on a waitlist you are NOT registered for the training. Hence we advise against committing to travel, accommodation or other expenses in anticipation of the event.

Yes you can. When you register for a training you can specify up to two separate billing addresses for up to two separate invoices. This means a third party (like a workplace) can pay your account. Or you can have two others (e.g. two workplaces) pay parts of the bill on separate invoices.

Our registration process is primarily designed for training participants to sign up and register themselves for training. This enable participants to view a record of training attended within their DBT Training Australia account. Also, for training where an application is required, we need to ensure the person is submitting their own details so we can determine their suitability.

It is possible for an administrator to sign up their colleagues. See our section on Administrator Accounts.

Our system is designed for users to make and manage their own accounts. If in doubt, it is usually more straightforward for people register themselves. However, If you are an administrator for a relevant employer, you can request the ability to sign up your colleagues for training. First, sign up with us for your own account by (i) completing our user sign-up and (ii) clicking the 'confirm' link that will be emailed to you. Next, email us via our contact page to request administrator rights to sign up your colleagues. Please state why you are requetsing these rights instead of letting your colleagues register for themselves.

Administrators are not able to register their colleagues for some advanced trainings where the application process requires detailed professional information to help us determine the applicant’s eligibility.

Note if an administrator registers 'as if' they are their colleague, it may get confusing if the colleague later wants to register for more training or if the administrator later wants to register another colleague.

Unless the invoice has already been paid, you can log in to your account, go to the training page, click the 'Your details' tab and change some invoice details (eg workplace details). Then if you click the 'download your invoice' link the new version will have those details.

Sorry no. The only way to register is on-line.

When the training has been completed and the account paid, participants can download a PDF record of attendance. This will summarize the training and record your level of completion.  Log in to our site. From the ‘Training’ menu go to the ‘Your Training’ page. Click the ‘Download your training attendance record’ link for the completed training.