DBT-Informed Therapy & Skills

Sometimes emotions feel too big, too fast, or too hard to manage. You may find yourself shutting down, reacting quickly, feeling overwhelmed, avoiding conflict, struggling in relationships, or not knowing how to get through difficult moments without making things worse.

DBT-informed therapy can help children, teens, and adults build practical skills for emotional regulation, distress tolerance, mindfulness, communication, and relationships.

At The Art of Healing, our therapists may integrate DBT skills into individual therapy, teen therapy, parent support, couples work, family therapy, or trauma-informed care depending on your needs and the clinician you work with.

What Is DBT?

DBT stands for Dialectical Behavior Therapy. It is a structured therapy approach that teaches skills for managing intense emotions, coping with distress, improving relationships, and staying more present in daily life.

The word “dialectical” means holding two things that may both be true. In DBT, this often means learning to accept yourself and your experiences while also working toward change. This balance of acceptance and change can be especially helpful for people who feel stuck, reactive, overwhelmed, or caught in patterns they want to understand and shift.

At The Art of Healing, we often use DBT-informed skills as part of a broader, relational, trauma-informed, and whole-person approach to therapy.

The Four Core DBT Skill Areas

Mindfulness

Mindfulness skills help you notice what is happening in the present moment without immediately judging it, avoiding it, or reacting to it. These skills can support greater self-awareness, grounding, and the ability to pause before responding.

Distress Tolerance

Distress tolerance skills help you get through painful or overwhelming moments without making the situation worse. These tools can be helpful during conflict, panic, shutdown, urges, grief, anger, or moments when emotions feel intense and hard to manage.

Emotion Regulation

Emotion regulation skills help you better understand emotions, identify what they are communicating, and reduce emotional vulnerability over time. These skills can support clients who experience mood swings, emotional intensity, irritability, anxiety, shame, or feeling easily overwhelmed.

Interpersonal Effectiveness

Interpersonal effectiveness skills support communication, boundaries, self-respect, and relationship repair. These tools can help clients ask for what they need, say no, navigate conflict, and communicate with more clarity and confidence.

DBT-Informed Therapy Can Support

Emotional overwhelm and intense feelings

Anxiety, stress, panic, or shutdown

Depression, low motivation, or hopelessness

Anger, irritability, or reactivity

Impulsivity or difficulty pausing before acting

Self-criticism, shame, or low self-worth

Relationship conflict and communication challenges

Boundary setting and people-pleasing

Trauma responses and nervous system activation

Teen emotional regulation and parent-child conflict

Neurodivergent clients who need concrete coping tools

Transitions, grief, burnout, and daily stress

DBT Skills for Teens

Teens are often navigating big emotions, identity development, social stress, school pressure, family conflict, and rapidly changing relationships. DBT-informed therapy can help teens build skills for understanding emotions, tolerating distress, communicating needs, setting boundaries, and making choices that align with their values.

For teens, DBT skills may be integrated with talk therapy, art therapy, play-based or creative approaches, mindfulness, parent support, or family therapy. We work to make skills practical, accessible, and relevant to the teen’s real life rather than just another set of instructions.

DBT Skills for Adults

Adults may benefit from DBT-informed therapy when emotions feel difficult to regulate, relationships feel strained, or stress leads to shutdown, overfunctioning, avoidance, anger, people-pleasing, or burnout.

DBT skills can help adults slow down patterns, respond with more intention, communicate more clearly, tolerate hard moments, and build a steadier relationship with themselves and others.

DBT Skills for Neurodivergent Clients

Many neurodivergent clients benefit from concrete, practical tools, but DBT skills often need to be adapted in a way that honors sensory needs, executive functioning differences, communication style, masking, burnout, and nervous system capacity.

At The Art of Healing, DBT-informed work is not about forcing compliance or ignoring the realities of neurodivergence. Instead, we use skills flexibly to support self-understanding, emotional regulation, boundaries, distress tolerance, and environments that better fit the client’s needs.

What Does a DBT-Informed Session Look Like?

A DBT-informed session may include talking through a current challenge, identifying emotions and triggers, learning or practicing a specific skill, exploring relationship patterns, or creating a plan for handling difficult moments between sessions.

Depending on your needs, therapy may include mindfulness practice, emotion regulation tools, distress tolerance strategies, communication skills, boundary work, values clarification, art therapy, somatic-informed care, or trauma-informed processing.

DBT-informed therapy at The Art of Healing is individualized. It is not a one-size-fits-all program, and it may look different depending on the clinician, client, age, goals, and clinical needs.

A Balanced Approach to Acceptance and Change

DBT can be especially helpful because it does not ask clients to choose between self-acceptance and growth. Both matter.

In therapy, we help clients understand why certain patterns developed, reduce shame, and build tools for responding differently. The goal is not perfection or constant calm. The goal is more awareness, more choice, more emotional steadiness, and more compassionate ways of moving through difficult moments.

DBT-Informed Therapy in Edina and Online

The Art of Healing offers DBT-informed therapy and skills support in person in Edina, Minnesota, and through secure telehealth for clients located in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and California. Our experienced, licensed mental health providers offer compassionate support for children, teens, adults, parents, couples, and families navigating emotional overwhelm, anxiety, depression, trauma responses, relationship stress, neurodivergence, parenting stress, and life transitions.

Contact us to learn more or schedule an appointment.