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DBT House / DBH-A10-4

The Relationship Room — Session activity

Facilitate a structured practice of the relationship room with preparation, reflection, and an agreed closing.

30 minutes · Session guide · Mental health professionals

Download printable PDFPreview / add to packet

Fictional example: Riley asks a housemate for clearer notice about visitors.

Use within your training and assessment of readiness. Connection skills include clear requests, listening, and consent.

0–5 min | Agree on purpose and fit

Explain the educational scope. Ask what would be useful, check readiness and access needs, and establish choices to observe, adapt, or pass. Use an ordinary example; do not solicit trauma narratives.

5–10 min | Orient with an example

Connection skills include clear requests, listening, and consent. Fictional example: Riley asks a housemate for clearer notice about visitors. Ask what is observed and what remains uncertain.

10–20 min | Practice and compare

Draft a small request and a listening response for an ordinary interaction, then identify a negotiation limit. Offer quiet individual work, a supported conversation, or an observing role. Compare two possible responses without evaluating people as right or wrong.

20–25 min | Reflect on meaning

How can clarity and respect for both people's choices coexist? Ask what fit, what did not fit, and how culture, power, disability access, or external conditions affect the options.

25–30 min | Integrate and close

Invite one optional next step or support request. Orient to the current setting, allow an unfinished question to remain unfinished, and agree how to revisit it. End early or adapt if activation increases.

Adaptations

For a group, use fiction and no compulsory round-robin disclosure. For remote use, allow off-camera reflection and private notes. For brief use, keep one example and one question while retaining opening and closing choices.

Prompts for this resource

  1. What outcome would make this practice useful?
  2. How can clarity and respect for both people's choices coexist?
  3. What adaptation or follow-up is needed?

Conceptual background

Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Training: Fundamentals — Behavioral Tech Institute

Background on the approach only. Original exercises and wording are by More Than Therapy with AI assistance; the source does not validate or endorse these materials.

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