Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT)
Even if your therapist never names that they’re integrating some DBT into your therapy, they’re probably integrating some DBT into your therapy! Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) is a skills-based therapy approach that helps people navigate intense emotions, difficulties with emotion regulation, relationship challenges, and patterns that feel hard to change.
At its core, DBT is built on a simple but powerful idea borrowed from Buddhism: two things can be true at the same time. For example, you can be doing the best you can and want things to be different. Or, you can accept yourself as you are and work toward meaningful change.
While DBT is often associated with crisis support or high emotional intensity, its tools are useful for a wide range of people who feel overwhelmed, reactive, stuck, or exhausted by their own emotional patterns. Our therapists in west Ottawa can take a clear DBT approach with your therapy journey or sprinkle it in as needed!
How DBT Can Help
DBT-informed therapy can be especially supportive if you:
Experience intense or rapidly shifting emotions
Feel overwhelmed by stress, conflict, or interpersonal situations
Struggle with impulsivity or reactive behaviours
Find it hard to tolerate distress without shutting down or escalating
Experience chronic anxiety, mood swings, or emotional sensitivity
Want practical tools alongside insight-oriented therapy
DBT offers concrete skills that help create more stability and choice in moments that used to feel unmanageable.
DBT is helpful for teenagers and adults
While DBT is not an approach that we use with young children, it is helpful for teens, adolescents and adults. Much work has been done to make DBT more accessible to teenagers and our therapists will often integrate worksheets and homework specifically designed for teens.
Some of us have integrated the concepts into our work with pre-teens, as well, as long as they get some support from parents to do the worksheets! That’s because an important part of DBT is to practice the skills when you don’t need them so that they’re available to you when you do need them. That’s only possible when you make skill practice between DBT therapy sessions part of your life.
What DBT-Informed Therapy Looks Like
At The Wren Centre in west Ottawa, therapists may integrate DBT skills within individual, family, or teen therapy, depending on your needs and goals. This work is collaborative and tailored - not rigid or one-size-fits-all. We’ve introduced some clients to one or two concepts from DBT and left it at that, while others have embraced DBT therapy and used DBT workbooks outside of therapy sessions to support their progress!
DBT-informed therapy may include:
Emotion regulation skills to better understand and work with feelings
Distress tolerance tools for getting through hard moments without making things worse
Mindfulness practices to increase awareness and reduce reactivity
Interpersonal effectiveness skills to support boundaries, communication, and self-respect
Applying skills in real-life situations, not just in session
For many clients, DBT works best when integrated with other approaches, such as talk therapy, somatic therapy, or attachment-informed care. Skills are introduced at a pace that feels supportive rather than overwhelming. It’s important that therapist and client work at the speed required for successful integration of skills.
Next Steps
If you’re curious about DBT or wondering whether skills-based support could help you or your child, we’re happy to help you explore next steps.
If you’re not sure who to pick, you can book a free Therapist Matching Consultation, give us a call at 343-307-6677,
or send us an email.