Guides
Guides to DBT, in plain language.
What the skills are for, what a group is actually like, and how to tell an adherent program from a therapist who has read the manual. Free to read, no account, nothing sold.
Tools
- Which DBT skill right now?Answer three questions about this moment and get the one skill that fits it.
- Do I need a full DBT program?Ten questions on whether informed therapy is enough, or you need the whole structure.
- DBT cost estimatorIndividual, group, and coaching over six months: the real number before you commit.
Start here
- What DBT actually isThe four parts of a real program, the dialectic underneath, and who it was built for.
- Does online DBT work?What the research says about video delivery, and the one part that gets harder.
- DBT vs CBTSame family, different job. How to tell which one you are looking for.
- Adherent DBT vs “DBT-informed”The distinction nobody explains, and when the full program is worth the trouble.
- What DBT costsProgram fees, why the group is billed separately, and how people actually afford it.
- Is DBT right for me?Who it helps most, who it helps least, and the honest alternatives.
- Your first DBT sessionThe commitment conversation, the diary card, and why nobody starts with skills.
- Printable worksheetsTen one-page PDFs — diary card, chain analysis, DEAR MAN planner, a TIPP card for your wallet.
- How to find a real DBT therapistFour questions that separate trained clinicians from the ones who read the book.
The four skills modules
- Mindfulness, the DBT versionNot meditation. Wise mind, and the three states you move between all day.
- Distress toleranceGetting through the hour you cannot tolerate, without making it worse.
- Emotion regulationTurning down the volume before the emotion arrives, not during.
- Interpersonal effectivenessAsking for something, saying no, and keeping the relationship and your self-respect.
Skills for the actual moment
- TIPP: the skill for the worst ten minutesCold water and a racing heart — the one that works when nothing else will.
- Opposite actionDoing the exact opposite of what the feeling demands, and why it works.
- DEAR MANThe script for asking, and why the order of the letters matters.
- Radical acceptanceThe most misunderstood skill in DBT. It is not approval, and it is not giving up.
- Check the factsWhether the emotion fits the situation, and what to do when it does.
- The STOP skillFour letters between the urge and the thing you would regret.
- Riding the wave of an urgeUrges peak and fall. What that actually feels like from the inside.
- Self-soothe with five sensesThe skill people dismiss as too simple, and why it is in the manual.
- PLEASE: the body underneath the moodSleep, food, illness, substances. The unglamorous half of emotion regulation.
- Pros and cons, done the DBT wayFour boxes, not two — and you fill them in before the crisis, not during.
- Wise mindThe place between reason and emotion, and how to find it on a bad day.
What DBT is for
- DBT for borderline personality disorderWhat the diagnosis means, what it does not, and why DBT was built for it.
- DBT and self-harmWhy it works on urges rather than willpower, and what the first months look like.
- When you are thinking about dyingWhat DBT does with suicidal thinking, and what to do tonight.
- Emotional dysregulation, explainedZero to a hundred and back down slowly. The biology, without the shame.
- DBT for eating disordersBingeing, restricting, purging — where DBT fits and where it does not.
- DBT for drinking and usingDialectical abstinence, and the difference between a lapse and a collapse.
- DBT and ADHDRejection sensitivity, emotional intensity, and the skills that transfer.
- DBT and traumaWhy trauma work usually waits, what DBT-PE is, and when the order changes.
- DBT for teenagersWhat the adolescent version adds, and why parents sit in the group too.
- DBT for anger you regretThe thing you said at eleven at night, and the skill that gets between you and it.
Living the program
- The diary cardThe homework everyone resents, and what your therapist is actually reading.
- Chain analysisWalking backwards through the worst twenty minutes of your week, link by link.
- The skills groupIt is a class, not group therapy. What that means on the first night.
- Phone coaching between sessionsWhen to call, what to say, and why it is not a crisis line.
- Therapy-interfering behaviorThe DBT idea that you can be a problem in your own treatment, said without blame.
- I hate the homeworkThe most common reason people quit DBT, and what to do instead of quitting.
- How long does DBT take?A year is standard. What happens in each stage, and when people leave early.
- Validation, and why it is not agreementThe six levels, and the one most people skip.
- When DBT endsWhat holds, what fades, and how to keep the skills without the structure.
For the people around you
- Loving someone who is in DBTWhat to say, what not to fix, and how to stop being the emergency service.
- Family skills, for the familyWhat partners and parents can learn without becoming anyone’s therapist.
- DBT and your relationshipWhat changes at home when one person learns to regulate, and what it costs at first.