Learn and Earn Over Lunch Series

Thanks for being part of our community!

The Learn and Earn over Lunch series is an opportunity to earn free NBCC approved continuing education credits from outstanding trainers, while you eat lunch! Join us online (via Zoom) from noon to 1:00pm Pacific Time every month on the second Wednesday.

In addition, feel free to take a look at our other training offerings as well as employment opportunities at PDBTI!

Understanding and Addressing Shame with LGBTQ+ Clients

For many LGBTQ+ clients, shame is a central emotional struggle contributing to life-threatening, therapy-interfering, and quality-of-life-interfering behaviors. Shaped by LGBTQ-specific discrimination and internalized stigma, this shame often requires culturally competent conceptualization and methods to address appropriately in therapy. This 1-hour webinar will help clinicians understand how LGBTQ+ minority stress functions as traumatic invalidation and contributes to clients’ experiences of sexuality- or gender-specific shame as well as generalized shame. It will also explore how DBT skills can be adapted and used to address shame in queer and trans clients, with specific focus on effective opposite action, self-compassion, and practices of queer joy and gender euphoria.

Learning Objectives  
By the conclusion of this event, participants will be able to:

1. Describe how LGBTQ+ minority stress fits into a biosocial conceptualization of LGBTQ+ clients’ experiences of shame.
2. Identify at least three DBT skills for reducing identity-related shame or increasing self-compassion in LGBTQ+ clients.
3. Describe how Opposite Action can be used to address shame with LGBTQ+ clients while prioritizing safety and validation in a culturally competent way.

Instructor | Dr. Kiki Fehling (they/she) is a licensed psychologist, author, speaker, and DBT Linehan Board-certified expert in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT). Passionate about making evidence-based mental health information more accessible, Kiki focuses on advocacy and public education around LGBTQIA+ mental health, suicide prevention, BPD, and the intersection between mental health and heart health. She is the author of The LGBTQ+ Mental Health Workbook, Self-Directed DBT Skills, and DBT Cards for Coping Skills. Kiki also writes the Substack newsletter How To Queer Joy, consults for suicide prevention nonprofit Now Matters Now, and shares DBT skills and mental health resources across social media @dbtkiki. 

AI & Mental Health: Ethical and Practical Considerations

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly being woven into our lives, from social media algorithms and digital assistants to school-based screening tools and mental health chatbots. This has created both opportunities for support and new challenges for mental health. This presentation offers an overview of current findings on AI’s impact on mental health, alongside considerations for therapists and mental health professionals regarding usage and impact. Presenters will outline the current research, ethical and practical considerations, and equity implications for therapeutic contexts. The lunch and learn aims to support providers in better promoting digital well-being, protecting patient privacy, mitigating harm, and understanding the scope of responsibility when leveraging AI in therapy.

Learning Objectives  
By the conclusion of this event, participants will be able to:

1. List three current evidence-based findings regarding the impact of AI on mental health.
2. Describe three ethical considerations when integrating AI into therapy practices.
3. Identify two ways to increase client privacy if utilizing digital/AI tools.

Instructors | Dr. Faria Kamal is a licensed clinical psychologist in New York City, a DBT trainer and consultant for Behavioral Tech, and a Clinical Supervisor at Columbia University Medical Center. She provides evidence-based therapy to children, adolescents, adults, and families. Her research has focused on providing effective mental health services to marginalized communities, along with the assessment and implementation of DEI practices within clinical spaces. In addition, she is a founding member of the ISITDBT Anti-Racism Committee.

Clerissa Cooper is a licensed professional counselor who works with teens and adults in Georgia. She specializes in supporting folks navigating developmental and complex trauma, depression, anxiety, Obsessive-Compulsive Spectrum Disorders, and personality disorders using Somatic Experiencing, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, the DBT Prolonged Exposure protocol, Exposure and Response Prevention, and clinical hypnotherapy.

Clerissa has past professional experience in the Feminist and healing justice frameworks to inform holistic work with clients. Clerissa works to expand accessibility of training and services with clinicians and clients who identify as Black, Indigenous, Non-Black People of Color, and also hose who hold other marginalized identities and experiences. In her practice, she also works specifically with Black Women, individuals who identify as part of the LGBTQIA+ community, community organizers, and activists.

She continues to expand her training and practice to support individuals addressing the impact of interpersonal, structural, and historical trauma while strengthening healing and wellness from a somatic approach that also incorporates intuitive, transitional, and ancestral healing practices.

Are you interested in more training on this topic? Join us on January 22, 2027 for a 3hr training on this topic!

Treating Couples with Borderline Personality Disorder: Lessons Learned from the Sage Studies

Dr. Fitzpatrick and her colleagues have spent the past five years developing and testing Sage; a Dialectical Behavior Therapy-informed couple intervention for borderline personality disorder (BPD) and emotion dysregulation. This webinar will provide an overview of Sage and the research supporting its efficacy to date. It will also draw on lessons learned from the development, testing, and implementation of Sage to provide clinicians with concrete skills for treating BPD within a dyadic framework and/or incorporating partners into BPD treatment. Targeted skills designed to facilitate interpersonal emotion regulation, including ways to encourage effective emotional expression, communication, and validation, and reduce invalidation in both members of the couple will be described.

Learning Objectives  
By the conclusion of this event, participants will be able to:

1. Describe the three phases of Sage and guidelines for progressing from one phase to the next.
2. Describe the current evidence base for Sage in treating couples wherein one member has BPD.
3. Identify core strategies for promoting interpersonal emotion regulation in couples wherein one member has BPD.

Instructors |Dr. Skye Fitzpatrick is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at York University and the director of the Treating and Understanding Life-threatening behaviour and Posttraumatic stress (TULiP lab). Dr. Fitzpatrick is focused on demystifying, destigmatizing, and broadening access to treatments for borderline personality disorder (BPD), emotion dysregulation, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). She specifically aims to optimize, expedite, and expand access to interventions for these disorders by targeting them alongside the social contexts that they are nested within. Her research can be organized into four interrelated streams. The first involves advancing understanding of the nature of BPD and its social context through experimental, ecological momentary assessment, and observational studies. The remaining three involve using clinical trial methodologies to develop and test Sage– a brief, conjoint intervention for people with BPD and their significant others; scalable interventions for PTSD; and interventions for comorbid BPD and PTSD. Dr. Fitzpatrick has published ~100 peer-reviewed manuscripts and book chapters to these ends. She has also been awarded over $9.5 million CAD in grant and scholarship funding for work in these and related areas.

November: Join us virtually or in Baltimore, MD at ISITDBT Conference on Thursday November 12, 2026! Registration opening soon!

FREE CONTINUING EDUCATION CREDIT

Participants who attend an event in this series will earn one free continuing education credit, NBCC approved.

Portland DBT Institute has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 6326. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. Portland DBT Institute is solely is responsible for all aspects of the programs.