Clinical Conversation

Guest: Sheri Van Dijk, MSW
Live: Wednesday, May 20th, 2026, from 1 pm - 2 pm Central
On-Demand: Available one week after the live event

When clients are flooded, “just breathe” is not enough. High‑emotion moments call for grounded, practical tools that actually help people feel safer in their bodies and in the room.

Join us for a free, clinically focused conversation with DBT and EMDR expert Sheri Van Dijk, MSW. Together we’ll look at how to bring DBT‑informed strategies into sessions in ways that feel doable for you and regulating for your clients.

In this conversation, we’ll explore:

• How to recognize early signs of emotional dysregulation before your client is fully overwhelmed
• DBT‑informed micro‑skills you can use in the moment to help clients come back into their window of tolerance
• Practical ways to weave DBT strategies into EMDR Therapist Training and Trauma Therapist Training work, without derailing the session
• How to work with shame, self‑criticism, and fear that show up when emotions feel “too much” for clients and for you
• Simple, teachable skills clients can take home to navigate high‑emotion moments between sessions
• How DBT, mindfulness, and EMDR can work together for clients with C‑PTSD, bipolar disorder, and complex trauma presentations
• What Sheri wishes more EMDR consultants and supervisors knew about DBT skills when supporting therapists toward EMDR Consultant Certification

You’ll have space to bring your own clinical questions, share real cases (with confidentiality preserved), and learn in a room full of therapists who get how intense this work can be.

Sheri is a Social Worker who has been working with clients with severe mental health problems since 2000. With extensive experience in a hospital as well as community setting, Sheri now sees clients in private practice and provides consultation and training internationally to other clinicians. Sheri has had extensive training in dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) and mindfulness and has been providing DBT-informed therapy to individuals and groups since 2004. Sheri was the winner of the R.O. Jones award for her research on using DBT with bipolar disorder, presented at the Canadian Psychiatric Association Conference.

Sheri trained in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) in 2018 and is an EMDRIA-approved Consultant; she is a member of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD) and is a consultant for the ISSTD’s EMDR training program.

Sheri is the author of numerous books that focus on helping readers learn DBT skills and apply them to a variety of mental health problems, including The DBT Workbook for C-PTSD, The DBT Workbook for Emotional Relief, and the best-selling Don’t Let Your Emotions Run Your Life for Teens.