Dialectical Behavioral Therapy
What Is Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT)?
If you're feeling overwhelmed by intense emotions, stuck in unhealthy patterns, or struggling with relationships, DBT or Dialectical Behavioral Therapy can help you find relief and create lasting change. Unlike traditional therapy, DBT counseling teaches practical skills to manage stress, regulate your emotions, and build healthier relationships. By combining acceptance and change, you will feel empowered to respond thoughtfully to life's challenges rather than react impulsively.
Whether you're dealing with anxiety, depression, or life transitions, DBT treatment gives you the tools to handle trying times and break free from old patterns. DBT offers specific skills that will help you make tangible progress and take control of your life. Through DBT, you’ll develop emotional resilience, greater self-awareness, and a deeper sense of balance.
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How Does Dialectical Behavioral Therapy Work?
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) focuses on four areas to help you manage big emotions, handle stress, improve relationships, and feel more in control:
Emotional regulation (managing feelings);
Distress tolerance (coping in tough moments);
Interpersonal skills (building better relationships);
Mindfulness (staying present).
Throughout sessions with a therapist, you’ll practice DBT tools to help you respond to challenges calmly and intentionally. Cultivating new skillsets allows you to create a balanced and fulfilling life, enabling you to show up in the world and your relationships the way you intend to.
DBT offers a unique balance of acceptance and change, making it highly effective for those who haven’t experienced the success they were hoping for with other forms of therapy. It’s action-oriented, building specific, practical skills to regulate emotional responses, tolerate distressful situations without acting impulsively, and cultivate healthier relationships.
DBT’s structured approach breaks down complex issues into manageable steps, fostering growth where other methods may feel too abstract or unhelpful. With DBT, clients learn to understand their struggles and actively change how they respond, creating long-term relief and tangible progress. As counselors who take a fully integrated approach to therapy, we help clients incorporate DBT skills and strategies into their daily routine, along with somatic exercises, such as guided visualizations and breathing meditations.
Clients using DBT gain practical tools to handle life's challenges with confidence and grace. DBT teaches mindfulness, helping you stay present and respond intentionally rather than react emotionally. Over time, you’ll develop greater self-awareness, emotional balance, and resilience, empowering you to break unhelpful patterns and create a life aligned with your goals and values.
Who Can Benefit From Dialectical Behavioral Therapy?
The hands-on tools DBT offers can help you reduce anxiety, depression, and self-destructive behaviors, especially if you experience borderline personality disorder or emotional dysregulation. Unlike traditional talk therapy, DBT combines practical skills with acceptance, helping you cultivate effective tools to cope in the moment. It also provides tools to manage overwhelming emotions and navigate real-life challenges in the moment.
We use DBT to help millennials and midlife individuals navigate common life transitions, like building careers, forming relationships, rediscovering themselves, or managing family dynamics. If you struggle with overwhelming emotions, relationship conflicts, perfectionism, or unhealthy coping, DBT provides practical tools to stay grounded, handle stress, and create healthy lifestyle patterns. Together, we work to help you feel in control, emotionally balanced, and aligned with your goals.
DBT can help improve:
Emotional Dysregulation: Struggling to manage intense emotions such as anger, sadness, or anxiety, often leading to feelings of being out of control;
Impulsive Behaviors: Engaging in self-destructive actions like substance use, self-harm, or risky behaviors to cope with overwhelming feelings;
Interpersonal Conflicts: Experiencing difficulties in maintaining relationships due to intense emotional reactions, fear of abandonment, or ineffective communication;
Chronic Feelings of Emptiness;
Borderline Personality Disorder, eating disorders, anxiety; and emotional regulation.
“There is a wealth of evidence supporting the effectiveness of DBT.” [1] According to a study conducted at Brown University that compared dialectical psychotherapy with traditional Cognitive Behavior Therapy for adolescents suffering from self-harm, after six months, 46 percent of participants who used DBT had not self-harmed, compared to only 28 percent who had used CBT. After 12 months, the same study concluded that DBT had a statistically significant advantage in eliminating recurring self-harm. (Knopf, 2018) [2].
Our Background In Dialectical Behavioral Therapy
Our therapists have extensive training in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and truly believe in its power to help people. We’ve seen firsthand how it can transform the way individuals manage overwhelming emotions and navigate complex relationships. In our practice, we use DBT to support clients through anxiety, depression, and life transitions, giving them practical tools to stay grounded and build a more balanced, fulfilling life.
We were inspired to integrate DBT into our practice after seeing how effective it is for people struggling with intense emotions, relationship challenges, and self-destructive patterns. Our experience with clients facing these issues illustrated the need for a structured, skills-based approach that doesn’t just talk about feelings but teaches practical tools to manage them. DBT’s combination of acceptance and change resonates with clients deeply, empowering them with skills to create real, lasting change.
It’s time to stop feeling stuck and start creating the life you want. DBT can give you the skills and support to make that happen, helping you move forward with confidence and clarity.
[1] https://behavioraltech.org/evidence/
[2] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/cbl.30329
Find Out How Dialectical Behavioral Therapy Can Help You
To find out more about Dialectical Behavioral Therapy with the Union Therapy Group, please call or text
914-274-4811 or visit our contact page.
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