Christine Dunkley, DClinP, is a consultant trainer with the British Isles DBT Training team and honorary lecturer on the Post Graduate Diploma in DBT at Bangor University. She has a doctorate in Clinical Practice from the school of health sciences at the University of Southampton, and an honours degree and certificate of qualification in Social work. She began working as a medical social worker in 1982 and a psychological therapist in 1994. She is an accredited therapist and supervisor with the Society for DBT (UK and Ireland) and a senior accredited practitioner with BACP. She is a Fellow and Vice President of SfDBT. Christine trained in DBT in 2001 and had supervision with Heidi Heard who worked on the original trials with Marsha Linehan. She is trained to calibration in the University of Washington DBT adherence rating scale. She worked in the Winchester DBT team and specialised in seeing the patients who were at the point of being referred into expensive out-of-area placements because of more severe difficulties than could be handled in routine care. She and the team received an award from the Trust for their work on this service. She trained and supervised clinicians on the 5-year Implementation of DBT in Ireland, and was a consultant on the pilot site for a large NHS RCT in RO-DBT. Christine started offering training in DBT internally at Southern Health NHS Trust where she was employed. She joined the British Isles DBT training team in 2006, eventually rising to Consultant trainer.ย She has trained on 48 intensives, 26 Foundation courses, and over 200 workshops, making her the most prolific trainer in the British Isles DBT training team, and one of the most experienced trainers worldwide.ย She has given an exemplar lecture at the annual DBT trainers meeting in Seattle, and taught on the Linehan Institute induction program for new international trainers. Since writing her books on Mindfulness and Emotion Regulation she has also been in demand as a speaker all over the world, in person and online.
As a very experienced trainer she has consulted on difficult cases in every setting imaginable, from prisons, to perinatal units, and from specialist PD services to community treatment teams, with both adolescent and adult clients. She is well recognised for her expertise. She was the first chair of the Society for DBT (UK and Ireland) and awarded a fellowship for her services in 2016. She has written over 20 publications including 3 books, and 3 chapters in the Handbook of DBT edited by Michaela Swales. Her article based on her research into Hearing the Suicidal Patientโs Emotional Pain topped the โmost readโ chart in Crisis journal for over a year. Her co-authored paper with Michaela Swales on Skills Assessment in DBT was given an honorary mention in the 2021 Psyche awards.