DBT combines CBT with mindfulness and skills for managing intense emotions, tolerating distress and improving relationships. It was developed for Borderline Personality Disorder and remains one of the most effective treatments for it, but its skills are used much more widely.
The 'dialectic' is the balance between acceptance and change: you are doing the best you can, and you can do better. DBT teaches four skill sets — mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation and interpersonal effectiveness — and applies them to the situations where emotions run fastest. Full-program DBT includes group skills training and individual therapy; DBT-informed individual therapy draws on the same skills one-to-one.
Individual DBT-informed sessions are structured and skills-focused, with practice between sessions and diary cards to track emotions and urges. The practitioner is active and coaching rather than only listening.
People whose emotions feel very intense, change quickly or lead to actions they regret; people who have found unstructured talking therapy hard to use.
Further reading: Project Air Strategy — personality disorders.
No. DBT skills help anyone who struggles with intense emotions; a diagnosis is not a prerequisite.
Practitioners at OneBodyMind offer DBT-informed individual therapy. If a full program with a skills group is indicated, they will discuss referral options.
DBT has the strongest evidence of any therapy for reducing self-harm. If you are at immediate risk, please use the crisis contacts on this page.
If you or someone you know is in crisis, call Lifeline on 13 11 14, or 000 in an emergency. OneBodyMind is not a crisis service. Beyond Blue: 1300 22 4636.