Practice Innovations, Vol 11(1), Mar 2026, 27-41; doi:10.1037/pri0000285
Numerous clinical trials suggest that beyond its effectiveness in treating those with borderline personality disorder, dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is an effective transdiagnostic treatment for individuals afflicted by various mental health disorders linked to emotion dysregulation. However, the availability of DBT programs is currently insufficient to meet the clinical need for treatment in the United States (Iliakis et al., 2019; Spina & Levy, 2024), contributing to the existing gap between science and practice in mental health services and mental health disparities in underserved areas. Although DBT holds great potential for adaptation and use across various populations, at present, there is a paucity of studies examining barriers and strategies for implementing DBT programs in underserved community settings. After briefly discussing existing mental health disparities affecting Latina/o/x/e communities in an underserved community, we present the reflections of doctoral students and a postdoctoral fellow in a clinical psychology graduate program about their experiences in delivering DBT skills training to Latina/o/x/e individuals struggling with emotion dysregulation and holding multiple marginalized identities (e.g., race/ethnicity, immigration status, socioeconomic status, and gender/sexual identities) in a medically underserved community. The skills training interventions were culturally adapted following the Ecological Validity Framework (Bernal et al., 1995) to enhance the congruence between the clients’ experiences of their ethnocultural and linguistic context and the cultural properties embedded in the DBT skills trainings. The authors’ narratives highlight that imparting DBT skills training to this population is an enriching and rewarding experience. We also discuss supervision and clinical implications for DBT training and research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)