Dialectical Behavior Therapy

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is a structured, skills-based form of therapy that helps people manage intense emotions, cope with distress, improve relationships, and make healthier choices.

DBT combines two important ideas: accepting yourself and your present experience while also working toward meaningful change.

Build the skills to create a life worth living.

Strong emotions can sometimes feel impossible to control. You may react quickly, shut down, avoid difficult situations, or turn to behaviors that offer short-term relief but create additional pain later.

DBT helps you understand these patterns without judgment. Rather than simply telling you to “calm down” or “think positively,” DBT teaches practical skills you can use when emotions are intense and clear thinking feels difficult.

People may explore DBT for concerns involving:

Difficulty regulating emotions
Frequent emotional overwhelm
Anxiety or depression
Borderline personality disorder
Impulsive or unwanted behaviors
Self-harm urges or behaviors
Suicidal thoughts
Anger and intense conflict
Relationship difficulties
Fear of rejection or abandonment
Black-and-white thinking
Trauma-related distress
Unhealthy coping patterns
Difficulty setting or maintaining boundaries
Low self-worth or persistent shame

You do not need to have a particular diagnosis to benefit from DBT skills. Your therapist will help determine whether DBT, DBT-informed counseling, or another approach is the best fit for your needs.

What happens in DBT?

DBT is active, collaborative, and focused on helping you apply new skills to everyday situations. You and your therapist will identify the problems that interfere most with your well-being and develop practical ways to respond differently.

Understanding Your Patterns

Your therapist will help you examine what happens before, during, and after a difficult emotional or behavioral response.

Together, you may identify:

The situation that triggered the response
Thoughts and interpretations that followed
Emotions and physical sensations
Urges or impulses
Actions you took
Short- and long-term consequences

The purpose is not to criticize your choices. It is to understand the complete pattern so you can recognize places where a different response may become possible.

Setting Meaningful Goals

DBT focuses on behaviors and circumstances that have the greatest effect on your safety, relationships, functioning, and quality of life.

Your goals might include reducing harmful behaviors, managing emotional reactions, communicating more effectively, improving relationships, or building a daily life that feels more stable and meaningful.

Learning Practical Skills

Your therapist will introduce skills that address your specific challenges. You will practice these skills during sessions and discuss how to use them in real situations.

Learning DBT is similar to developing any new ability. Understanding a skill is the beginning; practicing it repeatedly is what helps it become available when you need it most.

Applying Skills to Daily Life

You and your therapist will review situations that occurred between appointments, identify which skills helped, and explore what made other skills difficult to use.

DBT is not about performing perfectly. Each challenge becomes an opportunity to learn more about yourself and strengthen your ability to respond effectively.

The four core areas of DBT

DBT teaches skills in four main areas: mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness is the practice of noticing what is happening in the present moment without immediately judging it or reacting to it.

Mindfulness skills can help you:

Recognize thoughts, emotions, and urges
Slow down automatic reactions
Separate facts from assumptions
Focus your attention more intentionally
Make choices that reflect your goals and values

The purpose is not to empty your mind or eliminate emotion. It is to become more aware of your experience so you can choose how to respond.

Distress Tolerance

Some situations cannot be solved immediately. Distress tolerance skills help you get through painful moments without making the situation worse.

These skills may help you:

Manage a crisis safely
Reduce emotional intensity
Resist impulsive or harmful urges
Ground yourself in the present
Accept realities you cannot immediately change
Create enough space to make a thoughtful decision

Distress tolerance does not mean approving of an unfair or painful situation. It means recognizing what is happening so you can respond effectively rather than remaining trapped in a struggle with reality.

Emotion Regulation

Emotions provide important information, but they can become difficult to manage when they are extremely intense, change quickly, or do not fit the current situation.

Emotion regulation skills can help you:

Identify and name emotions
Understand what emotions are communicating
Reduce vulnerability to emotional overwhelm
Check whether an emotional response fits the facts
Change reactions that are not helping
Increase experiences that support well-being

The goal is not to stop feeling. It is to experience emotions without allowing them to control every decision.

Interpersonal Effectiveness

Relationships can become painful when it feels impossible to ask for what you need, say no, handle conflict, or maintain your self-respect.

Interpersonal effectiveness skills can help you:

Communicate needs clearly
Set and maintain boundaries
Say no appropriately
Navigate disagreements
Protect important relationships
Balance your needs with the needs of others
Maintain self-respect during difficult conversations

You can learn to be both compassionate and assertive. Healthy communication does not require abandoning yourself to keep the peace.

Acceptance and change can exist together.

The word “dialectical” refers to the idea that two seemingly opposite things can both be true.

You can accept yourself as you are and want to grow.
You can understand why a behavior developed and decide it no longer serves you.
You can care about another person and still set a boundary.
You can experience a powerful emotion without acting on every urge.

DBT helps move thinking away from rigid either-or conclusions and toward a more balanced perspective. This can create new possibilities when you have previously felt stuck between extremes.

DBT is practical and skills-focused.

DBT includes meaningful conversation, but it is more than talking about what happened during the week. Sessions are designed to help you recognize patterns, learn strategies, practice new responses, and evaluate what works.

Depending on your needs, therapy may include:

Identifying emotional and behavioral triggers
Practicing mindfulness exercises
Developing personalized crisis-survival strategies
Completing behavior chain analyses
Rehearsing assertive communication
Creating plans for high-risk situations
Tracking emotions, urges, or skill use
Strengthening healthy routines
Solving barriers that interfere with progress

The goal is to help skills become usable outside the therapy office—especially during the moments when you need them most.

Comprehensive DBT and DBT-informed counseling

Comprehensive DBT is a specific treatment program that traditionally includes individual therapy, structured skills training, between-session coaching, and a consultation team for clinicians.

DBT skills and principles can also be incorporated into individual counseling without every component of the comprehensive program. This is sometimes called DBT-informed therapy.

Your therapist will explain the services available at Inner Peace Counseling of Utah and help you understand whether DBT-informed individual counseling, a comprehensive DBT program elsewhere, or another treatment approach would best meet your needs.

How long does DBT take?

The length of treatment depends on your goals, symptoms, and the type of DBT service you receive. Comprehensive DBT is often a longer-term program, while DBT-informed counseling may focus on selected skills within individual therapy.

Progress is not measured by never experiencing difficult emotions again. Instead, you may begin to notice that you:

Recover more quickly after emotional distress
Recognize triggers sooner
Pause before reacting
Use healthier coping strategies
Communicate more clearly
Set stronger boundaries
Make decisions that better reflect your values
Experience greater stability in daily life

Developing these abilities takes time and practice, but each skill can become another tool for building the life you want.

Is DBT right for you?

DBT may be worth exploring if you:

Frequently feel controlled by your emotions
Struggle to cope without making things worse
React impulsively when distressed
Experience recurring relationship conflicts
Have difficulty identifying or expressing your needs
Understand coping strategies but struggle to use them
Alternate between emotional extremes
Want practical skills in addition to supportive conversation
Are working to replace harmful coping behaviors
Want to create a more stable and meaningful life

Your therapist will consider your individual needs and help you choose an appropriate treatment plan.

Learn to respond instead of react.

At Inner Peace Counseling of Utah, we provide a supportive, nonjudgmental environment where you can better understand your emotions, develop practical coping strategies, and make changes that reflect your values.

Our therapists work with children, teens, and adults. Counseling is available at our Draper and Saratoga Springs locations and through secure telehealth for clients throughout Utah.

Ready to develop new skills?

You do not have to manage overwhelming emotions alone. DBT skills can help you move through difficult moments, communicate more effectively, and create a life with greater balance, connection, and inner peace.

Your hope. Your help. Your happiness.

Let’s Work Together

Get in touch so we can start working together.