Pineapple Support is sponsoring a free, eight-week course in dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) to help adult industry workers develop coping skills for anxiety, stress, and depression. The online course begins October 1st, with a new two-hour group session happening each week.

“Out of control emotions can make it hard to maintain friendships and romantic relationships, and can even jeopardise our careers,” says Leya Tanit, founder of Pineapple Support. “Many of us never learned the skills we need to cope with difficult emotions, and that makes it difficult to deal effectively with stressful or distressing situations that inevitably come up in our lives. This course teaches participants how to recognise, understand and regulate emotions so that they have more choices about how to manage day to day stressors and distressing events.”

Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) is a therapeutic practice that helps develop real-world skills for coping with stress, self-harm, addiction and anger.  Course attendees will work in peer groups to learn DBT skills that can be practiced between sessions, with a focus on working with others to understand the skills being taught.

The sessions will be led by Sophia Graham, a disabled, queer coach and therapist working primarily with marginalised individuals and groups. The course will teach attendees techniques for reducing triggers and allowing attendees to deal with crises more effectively.

“Performers can really struggle to access high-quality support,” says Graham. “As someone that has been really let down in the past by judgmental and unprofessional therapists, I know that it takes a huge toll on people’s well-being, and sometimes costs lives. I’m working to try to make that change.”

Pineapple Support, a registered 501(c)3 non-profit in the United States and a registered charity in the UK, was founded by Tanit in 2018. Tanit founded the organisation in response to a string of losses in the adult industry from depression and other mental illnesses. The organisation, has connected around four hundred adult performers to mental health services so far, including free and low-cost, therapy, counseling and emotional support.

The new, DBT training course will be free to any performers and models in the adult industry, beginning on October 1st and consisting of a 2-hour session each week. The course will include homework between sessions, which usually takes between 20 minutes and an hour. Any adult model or performer that would like to take part in the sessions should apply by visiting Pineapple Support.