Okay, so here’s a graphical overview of the main components of RQ-DBT.
Standard DBT has the metaphor of a house. Radically Queer DBT has the metaphor of a cake.
First off, Standard DBT is like box cake mix. It does what is says on the box: it helps you build a life worth living. All well and good.
So Standard DBT makes plain vanilla cake. Ok, so now you have cake. But trubs is, queer, trans, and neurodivergent people aren’t plain vanilla people— Standard DBT doesn’t really meet their needs.
Basically, Plain Vanilla Cake is kinda boring. But you aren’t— so why not spice it up a bit? Enter Radically Queer DBT and its ‘special sauce’ of Radically Queer fillings. We’re going to make a layer cake.
So the serving suggestion here (imagine these are jam jars or Nutella jars or whatever— not radioactive play-doh, unless, of course, that’s your jam 😉) is to layer the Standard DBT cake layers with the following ingredients, which I think makes a particularly enjoyable QT+ND affirming cake:
| Queer Resilience | strategies & frameworks |
| Somatics | embodiment practices |
| Expressive Arts | creative artmaking, song, dance, etc. |
| Neuroaffirming Praxis | joining neuroqueer theory and practice |
These are the Radically Queer fillings we’ll be trying out in RQ-DBT. So it looks like this:
On the left side are the four Standard DBT modules:
- Core Mindfuless
- Interpersonal Effectiveness
- Emotion Regulation
- Distress Tolerance
On the right side are the Radically Queer fillings:
- Queer Resilience
- Somatics
- Expressive Arts
- Neuroaffirming Praxis
And when you put all these layers together:
When you assemble the cake, ingredients get stacked in a particular order. But when you eat it, you slice through all the layers and put it on a plate: they’re all in there when you serve it up. All the distinct elements of RQ-DBT are interrelated and interconnected. And finally:
You get to decorate your cake however you want. (I mean, really, you get to do the whole thing however you want!)
The best cakes are the ones we make our own: in our own style, to our own taste. You get to make Radicially Queer DBT your own. How does it fit in your life? How do you want to make it fabulous? You get to choose. 😄
If you want to learn more about the ideas behind RQ-DBT, check out About Radically Queer DBT. To join an upcoming group, fill out the interest form or click below.