01 · Mindfulness
Wise Mind
Bring emotion, available facts, and personal values into one workable next step.
Steps · Activity · Worksheet · Recovery24 MODULES · GUIDED PRACTICE · RECOVERY CONNECTIONS
DBT skills, one useful step at a time.
NEW · INTERACTIVE WEEKLY DIARY
Bring your week into the conversation.
Track skills, emotions, urges, and recovery reflections in a client-friendly digital card. Choose local saving, editable export, or print.
Notice what is happening. Make room for emotion. Choose what helps. Explore a skill, try an activity, and take one small practice into daily life.
Choose a starting point.
The four core DBT skill areas are mindfulness, interpersonal effectiveness, emotion regulation, and distress tolerance. This pathway adds four clearly labeled life-structure applications: Work, Love, Time, and Place. You can follow the sequence or choose a relevant module.
Alternative rebellion and adaptive denial are related substance-use recovery practices. They are distinguished from opposite action and temporary distraction. TIP/TIPP uses intense exercise, paced breathing, and paired muscle relaxation; the body-skills module offers gentle options and health cautions.
Find your next skill
24 modules
02 · Mindfulness
Observe: Just Notice · Urge Surfing
Notice sensations, thoughts, and urges without immediately acting on them.
Steps · Activity · Worksheet · Recovery03 · Mindfulness
Describe: Put Words On
Separate what happened from interpretations, feelings, and predictions.
Steps · Activity · Worksheet · Recovery04 · Mindfulness
Participate: Enter the Experience
Join a chosen activity with your attention instead of watching yourself perform.
Steps · Activity · Worksheet · Recovery05 · Mindfulness
Nonjudgmental Stance
Describe behavior and consequences without global labels about a person's worth.
Steps · Activity · Worksheet · Recovery06 · Mindfulness
One-Mindfully: In the Moment
Bring attention back to one chosen activity at a time, with flexibility.
Steps · Activity · Worksheet · Recovery07 · Mindfulness
Effectiveness: Focus on What Works
Choose actions that serve your actual goal within your values and circumstances.
Steps · Activity · Worksheet · Recovery08 · Relationships
Objective Effectiveness: DEAR MAN
Prepare a clear request or boundary while staying oriented to your objective.
Steps · Activity · Worksheet · Recovery09 · Relationships
Relationship Effectiveness: GIVE
Communicate with warmth and interest while keeping appropriate boundaries.
Steps · Activity · Worksheet · Recovery10 · Relationships
Self-Respect Effectiveness: FAST
Keep fairness, honesty, and personal values in a difficult interaction.
Steps · Activity · Worksheet · Recovery11 · Emotion regulation
Reduce Vulnerability: ABC PLEASE
Build a realistic foundation for emotional resilience and care.
Steps · Activity · Worksheet · Recovery12 · Emotion regulation
Accumulate Positive Emotions
Make space for small rewarding moments and longer-term valued experiences.
Steps · Activity · Worksheet · Recovery13 · Emotion regulation
Check the Facts
Examine interpretations while respecting real threats and emotional signals.
Steps · Activity · Worksheet · Recovery14 · Emotion regulation
Opposite-to-Emotion Action · Alternative Rebellion
Choose an opposite action when the emotion-driven urge does not fit the facts or help your goals.
Steps · Activity · Worksheet · Recovery15 · Distress tolerance
Distract · Adaptive Denial
Use a temporary attention shift to get through a difficult moment without making things worse.
Steps · Activity · Worksheet · Recovery16 · Distress tolerance
Self-Soothe
Use personally comforting sensory experiences without demanding that distress vanish.
Steps · Activity · Worksheet · Recovery17 · Distress tolerance
Improve the Moment
Make a hard interval more bearable through meaning, attention, rest, and encouragement.
Steps · Activity · Worksheet · Recovery18 · Distress tolerance
TIP / TIPP: Body-Based Distress Skills
Explore temperature, suitable exercise, paced breathing, and paired muscle relaxation safely.
Steps · Activity · Worksheet · Recovery19 · Distress tolerance
Pros and Cons
Compare acting on an urge with using a skill across short- and longer-term consequences.
Steps · Activity · Worksheet · Recovery20 · Distress tolerance
Radical Acceptance
Acknowledge what is already true while choosing what can change next.
Steps · Activity · Worksheet · Recovery21 · Life structure
Building Structure // Work
Build sustainable rhythms for paid work, study, caregiving, volunteering, or meaningful activity.
Steps · Activity · Worksheet · Recovery22 · Life structure
Building Structure // Love
Create rhythms of chosen connection, boundaries, and care beyond romantic relationships.
Steps · Activity · Worksheet · Recovery23 · Life structure
Building Structure // Time
Use flexible anchors to make room for care, responsibilities, rest, and recovery.
Steps · Activity · Worksheet · Recovery24 · Life structure
Building Structure // Place
Shape an available environment to support safety, attention, comfort, and choice.
Steps · Activity · Worksheet · RecoveryNo modules match. Try a shorter keyword or reset the filters.
Use a module in a session
Start with a manageable or fictional example. Read the skill together, choose a practice, and invite reflection without requiring disclosure. Each module includes facilitator notes and optional worksheets that can be completed on screen, printed, or saved through the browser's print dialog. Return to the existing DBT collection for additional formats and downloadable resources.
Background and sources
DBT skills concepts originate in Marsha M. Linehan's work. These are original More Than Therapy activities, not reproductions of official worksheets or endorsed materials.
- Linehan · DBT Skills Training Manual, Revised Edition (2025)
- University of Washington · DBT and its four skills areas
- VA South Central MIRECC · DBT visual review
References inform the skill framework; they do not validate these particular exercises. Life-structure modules are DBT-informed applications, not additional standard DBT core modules.