Chats with Trainers: Incorporating Informal Exposure into Stage 1 DBT

Sara Schmidt, PhD

Seattle, WA (United States) Sara Schmidt, PhD, is a licensed clinical psychologist in the state of Washington, where she is in private practice, and a DBT-Linehan of Certification, Certified Clinician™. Until 2021, she served as the Associate Director of the Trauma and Suicide Treatment Research Lab at the Seattle Institute for Biomedical and Clinical Research, part of the VA Puget Sound Health Care System, where she was a Co-Investigator on NIMH-funded research focused on the evaluation and implementation of DBT and the DBT Prolonged Exposure (DBT PE) protocol for PTSD. As part of this work, she co-developed the DBT Adherence Checklist for Individual Therapy (DBT AC-I), a tool that can be used by DBT therapists to evaluate the degree to which they are delivering DBT in a way that is consistent with the treatment manual, as well as the DBT Program Fidelity Checklist (DBT PFC), which enables programs to evaluate their fidelity to DBT and identify potential areas for improvement. Dr. Schmidt received her BA in Psychology from Wesleyan University, and my MA and PhD in Clinical-Community Psychology from the University of South Carolina. She com­pleted her pre-doctoral internship at Westchester Jewish Community Services in Hartsdale, NY., and her postdoctoral training with Dr. Melanie Harned at the University of Washington’s Behavioral Research and Therapy Clinics (BRTC). Following her postdoctoral fellowship, she remained at the BRTC as a Research Scientist, where she directed the graduate training program in DBT. She currently maintains a Clinical Instructor position through the Department of Psychology supervising advanced doctoral students. She also previously worked as a Research Scientist at Behavioral Tech, LLC, where she assisted in developing training content, methods, and customized implementation plans. Dr. Schmidt has experience providing DBT in a variety of settings, including community mental health, private practice, and residential facilities, and works with both adults and adolescents. She regularly provides professional trainings and consultation in DBT and DBT PE nationally and internationally and has published several peer reviewed articles and book chapters on these topics.