DBT Tokyo

Diverse People Smiling Happiness Cheerfu

DBT Tokyo opened its door in February, 2020 to offer DBT in earnest to multiculture individuals who live in Tokyo and wider Japan.

Vision

Japan that offers affordable and quality psychological service to all its residents including those whose first language isn't Japanese.

Mission

DBT Tokyo will offer DBT faithfully to individuals, couples, families and groups. DBT Tokyo wants to create and grow a community of DBT therapists in Japan. DBT Tokyo also wants to explore the effectiveness of DBT for migrants in Japan who are going through cross-cultural adaptation process.

DBT and Cross Cultural Adaptation Process

DBT is an evidence based treatment for complex psychological disorder such as borderline personality disorder. So, why are we talking about non-clinical, community population here?

DBT posits what we call "biosocial theory" for the development of 5 areas of dysfuntions. Some people are more vulnerable to stimuli (biology). And some environments are more invalidating of individuals' private experience (social). In the transaction between the two, slightly more sensitive individuals could become more and more sensitive without learning how to interact with their environtment.

International migration exposes individuals to a very vulnerable situation. Unpon leaving their environment, migrants lose the comfort of local knowledge, social network, and social skills. In the new evnriontment, they have to make important decisions in very short time and build new relationships without understanding crucial sociopolitical, cultural context. They also become aware (overly aware) of host community's perception on them. If the host community fails to understand their private experience and leave the responsibility of cultural adaptation to the individual efforts, migrants can experience invalidation similar to one explained in the biosocial theory of DBT.

DBT Tokyo tries to validate the migrants' emotional struggle from the biosocial theory, and help their adaptation process by applying DBT skills to the context.

Values

DBT Tokyo values

G: Growing multiculturally 　　　

U: Unconventional creativity　　　　　　　

E: Elastic business model 　　　　　　　　　　

S: Scientist-Practitioner base　　　　　　

S: Speed, flow and Movement