... is a specialized CMTE training for a small group of participants
to learn DBT's practical life skills and how to apply them in your music therapy practice.
The fall training starts on September 12th, 2022.
It is limited to 10 participants per cohort.
Your first step is to click the button below and apply for the program.
Completely revolutionize client outcomes and gain the respect of treatment teams worldwide through the power of a Music Therapy Approach utilizing Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)!
They'll be able to take the skills from your sessions into their real life.
As a Music Therapist...
You might find that when you use traditional music therapy practices with clients with impulsive behaviors and dysregulated emotions that you're not getting the results you do with your other clients, which leaves you feeling unsure about where to go next in your treatment and intervention planning to best support these clients, and wondering if you're doing it the right way. This experience can lead to:
You may think that your education could use more verbal processing skills and ways to deal with emotions.
When you reach out to other professionals on the treatment team, if you're like many music therapists, you are often not recognized as the true professional you are. Other disciplines seem to see you as merely fun entertainment.
Even if you work within a DBT based facility, you don’t quite know how to fit in as a music therapist. You want to provide the best services, so you seek new ideas and strategies to implement DBT with music therapy.
You feel like there are times that you need skills to cope through difficult situations yourself. You realize that your ability to help yourself directly impacts your effectiveness as a therapist.
Introducing the Spiegel Academy's
DBT Informed Music Therapy Training Program!
The Spiegel Academy's DBT Informed Music Therapy Program offers you a toolkit of skills that not only are massively effective for the patient...
... but also can lead to a lot more respect and opportunity for you as the therapist!
It's a win for the patient, and a win for you.
Your patients experience a powerful, ground-breaking set of skills to help them:
PLUS, you get to facilitate the process and receive the trust and respect you deserve!
What's Possible as a Trained DBT Informed Music Therapist
When you're working with clients with impulsive behaviors and dysregulated emotions, you know exactly what kind of support to give them to make lasting changes they can bring into the rest of their world.
You also have the skills to cope through difficult situations in your own life. We all know, being a music therapist can be stressful for so many reasons.
One of those reasons is how you are perceived by the treatment team you work with. Knowing a common language and demonstrating success with client outcomes allows others to more readily recognize you as a part of that team.
And...in completing this program you earned 100 CMTEs and an endorsement as a music therapist who has demonstrated competency in DBT informed practice!
"This DBT informed Music Therapist training has been profoundly beneficial both personally and professionally. My intention was to learn tools to use with my clients, which I have, and the supervision has been priceless. The bonus to me is being able to implement the skills myself and how it has improved my own life."
Betsey Carle MT-BC
Peggy Tileston, Clinical Training Coordinator at Temple University in Philadelphia, has this to say about the training:
Working in a psych hospital I was interested in learning more about DBT. I read Deborah's book, and even brought her out to the East Coast for a 3 day workshop, and I realized that I needed more in-depth training.
So when the DBT informed Music Therapy Program opened up, I took the training.
Here are 4 reasons I'd like to encourage you to also take the training:
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), is an evidence-based treatment model utilizing skills-training in the areas of mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness to strengthen change.
...being able to articulate to your treatment team using common (DBT) terminology and language, being perceived as a professional peer, and easily collaborating with team members in providing treatment.
...having a repertoire of effective coping skills to pull out of a hat on a moment’s notice...knowing you're providing an evidence based tried and true system you can adapt to your own clientele... having an effective toolkit that works with clients with impulsive behaviors, diysregulated emotions, lack of coping skills, and/or poor interpersonal skills!
The DBT Informed Music Therapy Training Program is only open twice a year.
The next start date is September 12th, 2022.
It's limited to 10 participants per cohort.
Your first step is to apply for the program.
Often when therapists are faced with a client with impulsive behaviors and dysregulated emotions, they realize they don't have the specific training to handle the situation. So they rush to get a variety of books, spend hours looking for research and interventions, and even more hours in trial and error trying to combine DBT with their music therapy sessions. But for most people, that's not efficient or effective.
I learned a new skill set that I had never learned before in school or anywhere. The DBT skills are very useful and applicable with all populations. Being able to have all the skills for mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation and interpersonal effectiveness to integrate into my music therapy has helped me address behavior, emotion regulation and communication issues with my clients."
Rachael Williams MT-BC
Hi. I was introduced to DBT in 2001 when working at the state hospital on a DBT team. I received training from Behavioral Tech as part of the treatment team, and gained 11 years of experience as a DBT skills group leader in that workplace. Inspired by my experience of being a music therapist on a DBT team, I started offering training for music therapists. I am now known as a leading expert in the field of DBT Informed Music Therapy. I've spoken, presented workshops, and delivered trainings on music therapy and DBT skills nationwide since 2009.
Director of The Spiegel Academy, author of Creative DBT Activities Using Music: Interventions for Enhancing Engagement and Effectiveness in Therapy, (with Lauren Bonavitacola and Suzanne Makary) I am passionate about supporting music therapists in integrating DBT into their work to expand the reach of our profession into this arena.
Since the time that I was first introduced to DBT, the amount of research on DBT and its effectiveness with various populations has exploded as has the popularity of its use. The need for trained music therapists in this field is growing which is why I created this training program and have run it for so many years. As the program has expanded I've brought in a team of experts to support music therapist who participate in the program, supervising their learning of DBT and applying it in their practice.
... has been providing supervision and training for participants in our DBT Informed Music Therapy Program since 2012.
Dr. Bonavitacola is a psychologist, DBT-Linehan Board of Certification Certified Clinician™, and board-certified music therapist and has worked for many years for Cognitive & Behavioral Consultants of Westchester and Manhattan (CBC), an outpatient CBT- and DBT-based treatment, training, and consultation center. She was the Director of Trauma-Focused Treatment Programs at CBC, working with adolescents, adults, couples, families, and schools. She now has her own practice.
Dr. Bonavitacola has expertise and specialized training in the delivery of evidence-based treatments for anxiety, mood, substance use, eating, and personality disorders across the lifespan. She specializes in the implementation of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) for Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and associated conditions, as well as CBT for anxiety and mood disorders, particularly Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in adolescents and adults.
...is a Board- Certified Music Therapist who facilitates experiential DBT skills training groups for participants of the DBT Informed Music Therapy program.
She has spent her career serving adults with mental health challenges. She completed her internship in 1997 at Allentown State Hospital. Since that opportunity, Suzanne has worked with an interdisciplinary team in the Partial Hospitalization setting.
Throughout her journey as a professional, Suzanne designs and leads daily music therapy groups to assist in learning and reaching wellness goals with her clients. She found Linehan’s work inspiring and used concepts to help frame her work.
In 2017, Suzanne completed the yearlong “DBT Informed Music Therapy” Program through The Spiegel Academy. As a DBT-Informed music therapist, Suzanne has created a curriculum for the Innovations Partial Hospital Program at St. Luke’s University Health Network focused on teaching DBT skills daily. Which is why she was excited to come back and share not just the skills, but also what she has done with what she has learned since completing the program, with participants of the DBT informed Music Therapy Training.
...is an intensively trained DBT therapist, who is here for answering all of your DBT questions as you study the skills in the Training Program. He works with Guilford Counseling, PLLC, in Greensboro, NC. He holds a Masters of Social Work and a PhD in Musicology and is also a teacher of Buddhist meditation.
Ethan has experience working with clients recovering from trauma and experiencing loss and health changes. In his first years of practice, he worked primarily with the elderly in various settings, and now works with clients of various ages and backgrounds. He loves the depth and adaptability of the DBT skills kit. In his therapy practice he is committed to meeting clients in a deeply person-centered, collaborative process.
...is a Board Certified Music Therapist, currently furthering her education in Social Work. She is a DBT Informed music therapist, and is here to support participants as they learn and apply the skills.
While earning a bachelor’s degree in music from North Central College, she spent summers as a camp counselor, an experience which inspired her to further pursue work in a helping profession.
In 2013, Bailey received her master’s degree in music therapy from Colorado State University; her graduate thesis was on the utilization of therapeutic music for young women with negative body perception and disordered eating.
Bailey has had the opportunity to work with a variety of populations including mental health, at risk youth, substance abuse, veterans’ needs, hospice, autism spectrum, developmental disability, and diseases of aging. Her greatest passion and life’s purpose, however, lies in mental/ behavioral health. She loves incorporating music and other creative arts to affect meaningful change in the lives of individuals she serves.
To continue her growth as a clinician, Bailey received her designation as a DBT informed Music Therapist through Behavioral Tech and The Spiegel Academy in 2017. She is passionate about DBT and music therapy and is excited to support you in your application of the skills in your life and your practice.
...you felt unsure of your abilities, ...
...you wished you had new skills to use, ...
...you tried to figure it out by yourself, ...
...you got burnt out and fatigued, ...
...and you felt alone with the struggle?
The DBT Informed Music Therapy Training Program is only open twice a year.
The next start date is September 12th, 2022.
It is limited to 10 participants at a time.
Apply now to claim a seat.
"The DBT Informed Music Therapy Program I completed at the Spiegel Academy is the best music therapy training I have ever taken..."
"I not only earned 100 CMTEs in a year, for a very comparable price I might add, but I now also have a credential and an effective evidence based skillset to use with a wide variety of populations."
Stephen King MT-BC
"I indeed learned common language to use so that I am better able to communicate with other therapists ."
Diana Gross MT-BC
"Since taking the training from The Spiegel Academy, I developed a DBT skills group with the psychologist. We did research to show the effectiveness of combining music therapy with traditional skills training. "
Lindsey Landeck MT-BC
"I am very excited to see the partnership of DBT skills and MT interventions emerge as what is sure to be a frontrunner in best practices of care."
Kirsten Sorensen, MT-BC
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Yes, Lauren Bonavitacola, PsyD, MT-BC, is a psychologist, DBT-Linehan Board of Certification Certified Clinician™, and board-certified music therapist. Ethan Lechner LCSWA, PhD is also an intensively trained DBT clinician.
The multiple layers of this program give you the ground work to learn, understand, and apply DBT skills in your practice. The curriculum is designed to delve into DBT skills straight from Linehan’s work through independent reading, working the skills step by step to deepen ways to understand, practice verbiage to teach them, explore personal use in a skills-training group like setting, and practice application as a music therapist. Supervision rounds out the training over several months to solidify and strengthen confidence in teaching DBT skills in your music therapy practice in meaningful application.
About 6-8 hours a month.
The first month is for completing the self-study classes.
Month 2-6 the schedule is tightly planned with weekly meetings (Monday nights) and monthly assignments for learning the skills and how to implement them through music therapy.
For the following 6 months there is more flexibility in your schedule to complete your case report and attend monthly supervision meetings with Dr. Bonavitacola. Also during this second half of the year, you can attend the bonus breakout sessions for your group to practice choosing skills for certain circumstances and how you would use music therapy to implement the skills. You can attend the monthly DBT consultation group for music therapists for deepening your applications of the skills.
Lauren Bonavitacola wrote about research in the introduction to the book Creative DBT Activities Using Music: Interventions for Enhancing Engagement and Effectiveness in Therapy. You can read what she wrote here.
In a recent study completed at Kalamazoo Psychiatric Hospital, a music therapist and a psychologist compared traditional DBT skills groups with skills training that included music therapy. The results on client outcomes were favorable for music. The results will be released in the Journal of Music Therapy. Until then all the details can’t be released.
No. DBT has been shown to be effective with a wide range of diagnosis and settings including but not limited to schools, prisons, addiction recovery, and mental health. PLUS people use DBT skills with children, adults, adolescents, seniors, in hospice, with hospital staff, for wellness, for self development, and with a variety of abilities.
DBT works for many different populations. See what these music therapists say about their experiences.
"I was burnt out, not really knowing what direction to go with the kids.
Not having any contact with other music therapists at all I was at a loss so I really appreciated talking to people in person, asking questions, bringing situations to the group for input, and hearing everyone's advice helped me a lot.
Bringing it back to the kids, and using it on myself has helped a lot with difficulties in sessions. This is definitely something they need and I was able to adapt it like I adapt anything I do with them."
Chelsea Josephson MT-BC
MT in Residential Treatment for Children with Cognitive Delays & Challenging Behaviors
" I'm grateful for having to be accountable... on a personal level, to do work I needed to do helped me feel in integrity.
And on a professional level, I loved the opportunity to work with and collaborate with DBT skills trainers and try out different ways to be using music with the skills."
Peggy Tileston MT-BC
MT Clinical Training Coordinator, Temple University
"This training refreshed me with a lot of new ideas, a new direction, and a good understanding.
I really appreciated not just reading about it, but the videos and the live feedback."
It was very validating because sometimes being the only music therapist you feel on an island by yourself."
Suzanne Makary MT-BC
Adult Acute Mental Health Partial Hospitalization Program
"I LOVE DBT skills. They are helpful for anybody on so many levels.
This program really helped me be reminded what the skills are and what they mean and many ways to use them with music.
It helped me expand my thinking and my creativity."
Victoria Mierlak MT-BC
Adolescent Residential Care: Mental Health w/ Criminal Charges
Having this skillset is a really important way to expand the way you can help your clients. When you invest in yourself its going to apply to not only to any clinical work that you do but to help you in your own life. You can be a role model for people in your life and watch the impact you make.
Take this entire program NOW for only $2997
or $297/month for 12 months.
(for 100 CMTEs, specialized training, and individual attention!)
This program won't be open again til next year.
There is an additional investment for the following Course Materials (books) which are not included in registration fees:
*Skills Training Manual for Treating Borderline Personality Disorder
*DBT® Skills Training Manual, Second Edition
*DBT Worksheets and Handouts
Creative DBT Activities Using Music: Interventions for Enhancing Engagement and Effectiveness in Therapy
* = Required
*** This program is for clinicians who already hold a credential
as a Board Certified Music Therapist and is limited to 10 participants per cohort ***
Hundreds of people like you have invested in our DBT Informed MT classes since 2011. We know that if you enroll and participate in this entire program, and apply yourself, you will be thrilled with the results. If you find that this program doesn’t feel like a good fit for you, you have 48 hours after the first day of starting the first class to get 100% of your money back. After that time, you will be able to transfer to any other classes of your choice of the same credit value from our catalog. No hassle.
You have nothing to lose, and so much to gain!
If you're wondering if you'll have time to come up with new interventions and session plans, when you join the training you'll get a year of access to this members only resource library full of ready-made music therapy session materials for each skill to help you SAVE TIME with session planning.
After you've done the deep dive and have studied and learned all of the DBT skills, now it will be time for supervised practice in deciding what skills to use in a given situation. Master the skills and build your confidence in creating on the spot music therapy applications for those skills.
In this online retreat, you'll hear presentations from other DBT informed music therapists, that are full of new ideas and strategies for implementing DBT with music therapy for a variety of populations. Your chance to hear from experts and to meet each other in a live community event.
After you implement your interventions, you get to debrief them with our team, so you are continuously leveling up with each time you implement. You'll have access to community conversations and announcements- a place to interact with others in the program, get resources, and ask questions in our PRIVATE forum (which is only accessible to other group members.)
Limited to 10 participants per cohort.
This is your opportunity!
You never again have to WONDER if there's something more you can do for your clients. No more frustration with difficult clients, feeling unsure of your abilities, wishing you had new skills to use, trying to figure it out by yourself, getting burned out and fatigued, and feeling alone with the struggle.
This is your chance to be able to learn new skillsets that are going to
Take a new action, and get a new result.
Take the leap...
... jump in...
... and join the movement as we combine DBT Skills with music therapy to support those we serve to build a life worth living!
What do you really want for yourself?
Your clients?
Your business?
THE DBT INFORMED MUSIC THERAPY TRAINING IS VALUED AT OVER $10,000!
Take this entire program NOW for only $2997
or $297/month for 12 months.
(for 100 CMTEs, specialized training, and individual attention!)
This program won't be open again til next year.
There is an additional investment for the following Course Materials (books) which are not included in registration fees:
*Skills Training Manual for Treating Borderline Personality Disorder
*DBT® Skills Training Manual, Second Edition
*DBT Worksheets and Handouts
Creative DBT Activities Using Music: Interventions for Enhancing Engagement and Effectiveness in Therapy
* = Required
*** This program is for clinicians who already hold a credential
as a Board Certified Music Therapist and is limited to 10 participants per cohort ***
Hundreds of people like you have invested in our DBT Informed MT classes since 2011. We know that if you enroll and participate in this entire program, and apply yourself, you will be thrilled with the results. If you find that this program doesn’t feel like a good fit for you, you have 48 hours after the first day of starting the first class to get 100% of your money back. After that time, you will be able to transfer to any other classes of your choice of the same credit value from our catalog. No hassle.
You have nothing to lose, and so much to gain!
Here's what to do now...
Click the "Apply Here " button below to apply for the Fall program 2022.
Orientation for the In-depth Skills Study with Music Therapy Applications and Supervision, where you'll meet the team and dive into the weekly zoom classes, is October 17th, and you'll want to have the self study work completed prior to that.
Schedule a time on my calendar and we can decide together what your next best step is on your DBT in MT journey.
I look forward to meeting you!
Deborah Spiegel
© 2022 D. Spiegel