On 10 March 2026, ACAMH will host a webinar Dialectical Behaviour Therapy for Adolescents (DBT-A).
We caught up with the presenter – Dr. Jake Camp, who is a senior clinical psychologist in the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, and a clinical academic fellow in King’s College London’s Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience – about the topic itself, their career, and their hopes for the event.
How did you first become interested in DBT-A, and how did you then come to specialise in it?
My particular lived experience and family experience of mental health difficulties meant I was very keen to support those who had experienced complex forms of trauma.
I always saw my career as working with adults, but there came a point when a mentor sold me the idea of working with adolescents, because it meant supporting people earlier in their trajectory.
I entered practice at a time when psychological therapy services were taking on a lot more low-complexity cases, in the rollout of the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies initiative in the UK. This meant that people with high levels of complexity were often waiting a really long time only to be offered standard, low-intensity CBT. So, it felt like we just weren’t meeting this group’s needs.
Then I had a chance to learn more about DBT…
On that note, can you explain Dialectical Behaviour Therapy for Adolescents (DBT-A) and what makes it effective?
DBT-A is a psychological intervention designed to support people where emotion dysregulation is often core to what they’re finding difficult. When you’re experiencing emotion dysregulation, you usually have dysregulation in other contexts, for example behavioural dysregulation like self-harm or suicidal behaviours, or dysregulation in relationships.
When I first came to DBT-A, I loved how much scope it gave you to be flexible and personalised. It was wonderful working with people who it felt like the system had let down, but now I could meet their needs somewhat more.
DBT-A supports people using multiple modes of treatment, each mapping onto specific functions. One function is to skill you up, which we do in skills training groups. We also provide other modes of intervention to fulfil other functions, such as individual therapy to help increase motivation to use those skills in everyday life.
What myths or misconceptions are there around DBT-A, or what do you think people don’t always understand about it?
One big misconception is that DBT is just about teaching emotion regulation and distress tolerance skills – there’s so much more to it.
It’s a problem if you try to adopt only the skills training element of DBT. When you miss all the other bits and just say ‘I’m going to teach you some skills’, you lose the beautiful level of compassion built into the model, all the therapist-based stylistic skills, and loads of other principles and techniques that make the model unique and effective.
Another thing – not just about DBT-A, but about the people we support, is that often people get hyper-focused on things like self-harm and suicidal behaviours, and see them as the “problem” per se. Then they try to provide quick-fixes like ‘go do some relaxation techniques’ or ‘have a bath and a cup of tea’. This oversimplifies problem-solving and can be extremely invalidating.
In DBT, we see self-harm and suicidal behaviours as solutions to problems, so our job is to work out with our clients what problem they were trying to solve, and how we solve it differently, so they do not use self-harming behaviours.
You’ll be talking in the webinar about enhancing cultural humility, accessibility and inclusivity within DBT-A – why is it so important to get this right?
Minoritised groups – whether that’s people from racially or ethnically minoritised backgrounds, sexual and gender diverse communities, neurodivergent people, or other categories – tend to experience high levels of mental health difficulties, yet face quite a lot of barriers to accessing services. When they do access them, there tends to be issues with satisfaction, acceptability, and sometimes higher non-completion of treatment.
In any therapy this is important, but in DBT it’s particularly important because we’re working with people engaging in life-threatening behaviours – behaviours that may lead to death.
It’s about being attuned to the diverse needs of different people based on their experiences and identities. Then it’s about being responsive and functionally validating via therapist behaviours that are congruent with and responsive to people’s needs, at least as well as we can from our positions of power.
Who do you hope will attend this webinar?
The webinar is aimed at clinicians, researchers, or prospective versions of both – people who have some degree of interest in what the DBT-A model really is.
A lot of the content will be going over some of the functions and modes of the interventions, and things that set it aside a little bit from the adult DBT model, then some top tips around working in that particular way.
And what is it that you hope attendees will be empowered to do or achieve as a result?
I’ll be delighted if I can sow the seeds of enthusiasm for this model, whether that means people wanting to become a DBT therapist, do research in this area, or whatever else.
Essentially, my goal is that some people feel motivated and empowered to go away and learn more about what I think is a pretty wonderful model, which can really change lives and save lives.
Interested in more?
This interactive workshop, Dialectical Behaviour Therapy for Adolescents (DBT-A), will provide an overview of the DBT-A model, including its theoretical foundations, core principles, and the structure and modes of delivery. Attendees will learn how DBT-A addresses the developmental needs of adolescents, and how parents/carers are engaged as partners in the intervention.
Speakers
Dr. Jake Camp (He/They) is a Senior Clinical Psychologist, DBT Therapist, and Clinical Academic Fellow. They work in the national adolescent DBT programme at the Maudsley Hospital, London, delivering comprehensive DBT for young people and conducting research to advance the field. Dr Camp provides DBT training and consultation nationally and internationally, including as a trainer with British Isles DBT Training. They serve on committees for the Society for DBT (UK and Ireland) and the World DBT Association. Their research interests include adolescent mental health, LGBTQ+ mental health, equality and inclusion, parent/carer support, and self-harm and emotion dysregulation.
