Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is an evidence based therapy that helps you manage intense emotions, improve relationships, and develop practical skills for lasting change.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is an evidence-based treatment approach designed to help individuals regulate their emotions, navigate interpersonal challenges, and build a life worth living. DBT is a structured, skills based form of therapy that helps people manage intense emotions and reduce self-destructive behaviors. DBT combines acceptance and change, helping you build a life that feels more balanced, stable, and meaningful.
At Utah Center for Psychological Services, our therapists integrate DBT principles and skills into individual therapy to help clients build healthier coping strategies and create lasting change.
DBT can be helpful for a range of concerns, including:
DBT teaches practical skills to help you respond to difficult emotions, navigate challenges, more effectively, and create positive changes in your life. Therapy often includes individual sessions, skills, training, and support and applying what you learn to real life situations.
You don’t have to wait until things feel completely overwhelming to ask for support. DBT can help you develop practical skills for managing difficult emotions, navigating relationships, tolerating distress, and responding more effectively when life gets hard.
Our therapists provide individualized, evidence-based treatment in a supportive environment focused on helping you create meaningful change in your everyday life.
No. At Utah Center for Psychological Services, we provide individual therapy that incorporates Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) principles and interventions.
At this time, we do not offer:
If you’re looking for individual therapy that incorporates evidence-based DBT skills, we’d be happy to discuss whether one of our therapists is a good fit for your needs. If you’re specifically seeking a comprehensive DBT program, we’re also happy to help point you toward appropriate community resources.
Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is a structured, skills-based form of cognitive behavioral therapy that was originally developed to treat people experiencing intense emotions and chronic suicidal behaviors. Today, DBT and DBT-informed approaches are used for a broader range of concerns involving emotion regulation, impulsivity, relationships, and difficulty coping with distress.
DBT combines two important ideas: acceptance and change. Therapy helps people better understand and accept their current experiences while also learning practical skills to change behaviors and patterns that are interfering with their lives.
DBT is best known for its use in treating borderline personality disorder (BPD), but DBT skills and DBT-informed treatment may also be helpful for people experiencing emotion regulation difficulties, impulsive or self-destructive behaviors, relationship problems, anxiety, depression, trauma-related symptoms, and difficulty managing stress.
Whether DBT is the right treatment depends on the individual and the concerns being addressed. A therapist can help determine whether DBT, another form of therapy, or a combination of approaches is most appropriate.
The four primary DBT skill areas are mindfulness, emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and interpersonal effectiveness.
Mindfulness involves learning to notice thoughts, emotions, and experiences in the present moment. Emotion regulation skills help people better understand and respond to intense emotions. Distress tolerance focuses on coping effectively with difficult situations without making them worse, while interpersonal effectiveness teaches skills for navigating relationships, communicating needs, setting boundaries, and managing conflict.
These skills are designed to be practiced outside of therapy so they can be applied to challenges in everyday life
During a DBT therapy session, you and your therapist may identify behaviors or situations that are creating problems, examine what contributed to them, and practice skills for responding differently in the future. Treatment may focus on managing intense emotions, tolerating distress, improving relationships, reducing harmful or impulsive behaviors, and building patterns that support a more meaningful life.
DBT is an active form of therapy. Clients are typically encouraged to practice skills between sessions and apply what they learn to situations outside of therapy. Depending on the treatment program, DBT may also include formal skills training or other components in addition to individual therapy.
