Dialectical Behaviour Therapy was developed specifically for people whose emotional responses feel too intense, too fast, or too unmanageable. It builds the concrete skills needed to navigate difficult emotional states without acting in ways that make things worse — and the longer-term capacity for a life that feels workable.
What Is Dialectical Behaviour Therapy?
Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) is an evidence-based psychotherapy developed by Dr Marsha Linehan in the 1980s, originally for people with intense emotional dysregulation. It has since been adapted for a wide range of presentations and remains the most rigorously researched skills-based treatment for emotional dysregulation available.
The word dialectical refers to DBT's core tension: holding two seemingly opposite things at once — acceptance of who you are and how you feel, alongside commitment to change. Both are needed. Acceptance without change leaves you stuck. Change without acceptance becomes self-rejection. DBT teaches you to do both.
At Newmarket Therapy Centre, DBT is offered in its core skills form — building practical capacities in mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness — and is often integrated with other approaches including CBT, somatic work, and IFS.
The Four Skill Modules of DBT
DBT is built around four core skill areas — each addressing a different domain of the emotional life. Together they form a practical toolkit for navigating intense emotional experience.
Mindfulness
The foundation of DBT. Mindfulness builds the capacity to observe your experience without being controlled by it — to notice what you are feeling, thinking, and doing, with curiosity rather than reactivity.
Distress Tolerance
Skills for getting through intense emotional moments without making things worse — without acting impulsively, without self-harming, without burning bridges. Distress tolerance is what gets you to the other side of a crisis intact.
Emotion Regulation
Skills for understanding, naming, and working with emotions over the longer arc. Identifying what you are feeling, why you are feeling it, and how to navigate it in ways that align with what you actually want.
Interpersonal Effectiveness
Skills for asking for what you need, saying no, maintaining self-respect, and navigating conflict — without damaging the relationships that matter to you. Particularly valuable when emotional dysregulation has affected close relationships.
Dialectical Thinking
The capacity to hold two seemingly opposite truths at once — to honour both acceptance and change, both my needs and yours, both this moment and the larger picture. The 'dialectical' in DBT.
Skills Generalisation
Skills practised in session become useful only when they show up in daily life. DBT places real emphasis on between-session practice — applying the skills to actual situations as they arise.
DBT does not ask you to feel less. It asks you to feel fully, while also acting in ways that build the life you actually want. Both at once. That is the dialectic.
Newmarket Therapy CentreHow DBT Works at Newmarket Therapy Centre
DBT at Newmarket Therapy Centre is structured, skills-focused, and collaborative. Your therapist will help you identify which skills are most relevant to your particular difficulties, and how to begin practising them in your daily life.
- 01
Assessment & orientation
Your therapist works with you to understand your particular patterns of emotional dysregulation and the situations where they show up most. Goals are set collaboratively.
- 02
Skills training
Through structured teaching and experiential practice, you learn the core DBT skills across all four modules — at a pace that fits your capacity and life situation.
- 03
Behaviour analysis & application
Together you examine specific difficult moments — what triggered them, what skills could have helped, and what to try next time. Real situations become the practice material.
- 04
Integration & generalisation
Skills move from concepts on a page to actual capacities. You leave therapy with a personalised toolkit you can continue using independently.
The Benefits of DBT
DBT has the strongest evidence base of any treatment for chronic emotional dysregulation — with research support across mood, anxiety, trauma, and personality-related presentations.
- Concrete skills for navigating intense emotional states
- Reduced impulsive and self-destructive behaviour
- Improved emotional regulation over the longer term
- Greater capacity to tolerate distress without making things worse
- Better interpersonal effectiveness and boundaries
- Increased mindfulness and present-moment awareness
- Reduced reactivity in close relationships
- Skills that continue working long after therapy ends
- Particularly effective for trauma-related dysregulation
- Suitable for combining with somatic and parts-based approaches
What DBT Is Used For
DBT is used for a wide range of presentations — particularly those involving emotional intensity, reactivity, or chronic difficulty regulating emotional states.
DBT at Newmarket Therapy Centre
Our DBT-trained Registered Psychotherapists and Social Workers at Newmarket Therapy Centre offer DBT skills work as part of an integrative, personalised approach to care. DBT is available for individuals and adolescents.
Sessions are available in person at Newmarket Therapy Centre or online for clients anywhere in Ontario. If you are specifically seeking DBT, please mention this when you contact us so Susan can match you with a DBT-trained therapist on our team.
Ready to Get Started?
Our intake team is here to answer your questions and match you with the right DBT-trained therapist at Newmarket Therapy Centre. No commitment required.