DBT Skills
DBT teaches practical skills that can help you manage emotions, tolerate distress, improve relationships, and respond more intentionally to life's challenges. The skills are organized into four core areas, each offering different tools you can learn and practise.
Practical tools for everyday life
Mindfulness
Learning to be present
Mindfulness is about paying attention to what is happening in the present moment with greater awareness and less judgement.
Mindfulness skills can help you notice your thoughts, emotions, physical sensations, and surroundings without automatically reacting to them.
Skills may include:
- Observing and describing
- Practising one-mindfully
- Letting go of judgement
- Bringing your attention back to the present
Distress Tolerance
Getting through difficult moments
Distress tolerance skills are designed to help you cope with painful or overwhelming situations when you can't immediately change what is happening.
The goal isn't to make difficult feelings disappear. Instead, these skills can help you get through the moment without making the situation worse.
Skills may include:
- Grounding strategies
- Self-soothing
- Distraction
- Crisis survival skills
- Radical acceptance
Emotion Regulation
Understanding and responding to emotions
Emotion regulation skills can help you understand your emotions, recognize what influences them, and develop healthier ways of responding.
These skills can help you reduce emotional vulnerability, identify what you need, and respond to emotions without being completely driven by them.
Skills may include:
- Understanding emotions
- Identifying emotional triggers
- Reducing vulnerability to difficult emotions
- Changing emotional responses
- Building positive experiences
Interpersonal Effectiveness
Building healthier relationships
Interpersonal effectiveness skills can help you communicate clearly, express your needs, set boundaries, and navigate difficult conversations while maintaining self-respect and relationships that matter to you.
Skills may include:
- Asking for what you need
- Setting boundaries
- Saying no
- Assertive communication
- Managing conflict
- Balancing your needs with the needs of others
Skills are meant to be practiced
DBT skills become more useful with practice. You don't have to use them perfectly, and you don't have to master everything at once. The goal is to build a toolbox of strategies you can draw on when you need them.
Explore DBT
Explore DBT, learn about the skills it offers, and discover ways these practical tools can support mental health, wellbeing, and everyday life.