Abstract

Since year 2020, the dialectic behavior skill training group therapy for treatment of borderline personality disorder patients started at the Psychiatry and Addiction hospital in Kasr Al Ainy. Multiple challenges and problems the DBT team were facing, especially that timing of start to implement this type of group therapy was during the Covid-19 pandemic, which was one of the obligatory fulfillment criteria to be licensed DBT therapist. And also many dialectic solutions to overcome these obstacles were created by team members. Method: The DBT team members of the psychiatry department, Kasr Al Ainy, consist of two assistant lecturers, four lecturers, two assistant professors, and one professor. The training of first part to get the license as a DBT therapist from DBT Linehan institute, California, started in Cairo, December 2019 and was completed in September 2020. The training consisted of a theoretical and a practical part. For the practical part the nine team members were divided in two groups. Each group started a DBT skill training group therapy, one for adults and one for adolescents, for about 12 borderline personality disorder outpatients in each group, lasting 6 months. Weekly supervision and consultation meeting were done. After this period another two consecutive group therapies were provided and the third group is ongoing. Challenges and opportunities used to face the team members and are still facing until now to keep the DBT group therapy as an ongoing therapeutic approach in the psychiatry department of Kasr Alainy.