minx I didn't do DBT. The health group I'm in (I got lucky, I believe fate drew me here...) was at the experimental stage with the Psychology dept at the local university (Maastricht) who were teamed with researchers in Manhatten with respect to applying Schema Therapy.
I started the Schema Therapy in the autumn of 2004 it must've been (time flies!) at at that time the approach was 1-2-1 with my psychologist, weekly meetins with a total time of +/- 3 years. The therapy started pretty much as all therapy does "tell me about your mother..." It also involves a lot of "imagine you are a child" (inner child) - which is a Brit is quite difficult to get your head around and I'll put my hands up to putting up a barrier/not playing the game because it just felt all "too American". At that point I was using Efexxor and Zyprexa/Risperdal.
I got involved with some of the research at the university which involved an MRI where upon I was subjected to different stimuli to see if my brain reacted any differently to a "normal" person's brain - I still have the print-outs of my brain. [cool] There were also PhD students who would come by and monitor my progress in response to specific questions over this period of time - it was very satisfying to be able to go from a shameful "er yes, 5 times" in response to a question to a "nope, nope, nope" throughout the entire questionnaire.
At around 18 months in or so, the team told me that they didn't believe I had a depressive disorder as such - it was just the BPD making me feel so ghastly. They wanted me to stop taking the meds so that the psychotherapy could really reach me. I was absolutely terrified, but the team were on call 24/7 - in fact there's such an amazing system in place that if I'd wanted to I could've had someone come and pick me up at 3am to just take me to the psychiatric hospital just for a chat, I could've just sat in reception. However, being BPD of course I never asked for help!
Approaching 3 years my improvements were fast and significant, these weekly meetings went to fortnightly, then monthly, then quarterly. I still have the option of going back of adhoc sessions - in fact I'm thinking of doing so because I am freaking out about being pregnant/a parent - although I gather this is completely within the realms of "normal".
My psychologist told me that they'd started working with group therapy in addition to the 1-2-1 and were finding that it goes much faster - as I said before apparently the patients talk to each other quite firmly but very supportively. When someone says something negative about themselves there's the whole group to say "no way! don't you dare say that about yourself, it's not you, it's X" - at the same time it is realistic. I questioned whether this would be healthy - it occurred to me that there might be some form of "one-up-manship" - you know, "who's cut the most this week?" type stuff. But he assured me that absolutely was not the case - and that anyone they felt who was potentially manipulating the others in such a manner was swiftly removed from the group.
I have BPD associates who've done DBT - and tbh the results are not amazing. Because they're taught how they should handle problems as opposed to re-programming the psyche they seem doomed to make these mistakes - because of course, under stress all logic flies out of the window. One in particular has nothing ahead of her but a life full of meds, intermittent suicide atteempts and regular admittances to her psych ward.
I know I'm biased... but I can't imagine being where I am without Schema Therapy.