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

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Mission 

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DBT Tokyo strives to offer DBT faithfully.  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.

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Who chooses to come to DBT Tokyo 

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Between February 2000 and December 2024, 498 clients from 51 countries came to DBT Tokyo, of which 58% has foreign nationality.  The ratio of Japanese clients grew from mere 15% in the first year to 42% today.  Japanese (42%) and American (20%) are the biggest group of clients, followed by UK (4%), Australia (3%), France (3%), China (2%), Canada (2%) and the Philippines (2%).   Seventy-six people (16%) have more than two nationalities.  

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Seventy five percent (75% )of the clients prefer using English for therapy regardless of the nationality.  The clients’ age ranges from 12 years old to 75 years old, though 52% of the clients are in their 20s and 30s. 

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Most of the clients are foreign workers, foreign students, children born in the international union, Japanese married to foreigners, foreigners married to Japanese, Japanese who spent many years abroad, LGBTQ, Single parents, members of a blended family, people who cannot fit in the work environment, victims of various forms of harassments and abuses.  The commonality is that they all suffer from extreme emotional experiences. 

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Why DBT Tokyo cares about international migration 

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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 dysfunctions.  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 environment. 

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International migration exposes individuals to a very vulnerable situation.  Upon leaving their environment, migrants lose the comfort of local knowledge, social network, and social skills.  In the new environment, 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.  

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DBT Tokyo tries to validate their very personal and private experiences thrown into a new environment  from the biosocial theory, and help their adaptation process by applying DBT skills to the context.  

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Values

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DBT Tokyo values 

 

G:  Growing multiculturally 　　　 

U:  Unconventional creativity　　　　　　　 

E:   Elastic business model 　　　　　　　　　　 

S:   Scientist-Practitioner base　　　　　　 

S:  Speed, flow and Movement