The short answer: you can learn the skills on your own. You cannot do the therapy on your own, and the two are not the same thing.
Where I am standing when I say that: I am not a therapist. I did a ten-month DBT programme on the NHS in 2020, and in my own words from the front of my journal: for a long time, my emotions were running the show, and frankly, they were doing a terrible job directing. Then I found DBT. It quite literally changed my life. Since then I have worked as a peer support worker, sharing what I learned with people who also struggle with anxiety and big emotions. That is the view this page is written from: lived experience and a lot of practice, not a clinical qualification.
What is DBT, in plain words?
DBT stands for dialectical behaviour therapy. It was built for people whose emotions arrive fast and big, and who were never shown what to do with them. Underneath all the skills sits one idea: your feelings are real and allowed, and you can still learn to do something different with them. Both at once.
The full therapy, the version the NHS offers, usually means weekly one-to-one sessions with a therapist, a weekly skills group, and an out-of-hours number to call when things get worse (NHS, treatment for BPD). It is a team effort and it takes months. That is the part you cannot do alone, and it is not meant to be done alone.
The skills group is the part that travels. It is a course, with handouts and homework, and the handouts are the bit that ends up on fridge doors and in journals like mine.
The four skill areas, in everyday words
The names sound clinical. What they cover is not.
- Mindfulness: coming back to now. Noticing what is happening in your body and around you, on purpose, without running off into the story about it. This is the foundation the other three stand on. 5-4-3-2-1 grounding and slow breathing live here.
- Distress tolerance: getting through the worst moments without making them worse. The in-the-moment skills, for when a feeling is at nine out of ten and thinking has gone. Holding something cold, self-soothing with the five senses, distraction, a self-soothe box. This is the section of my journal I am most passionate about.
- Emotion regulation: understanding and steadying your emotions. Naming what you feel (the emotions wheel), checking whether the feeling fits the facts, and looking after the basics that make feelings easier to carry: sleep, food, movement. Slower work, done on the calmer days.
- Interpersonal effectiveness: speaking up and setting boundaries. Asking for what you need and saying no, kindly and clearly, without losing yourself or the other person.
Does learning the skills on their own do anything?
The research is fair but not finished. A review of seventeen studies that used DBT skills training without the rest of the therapy found early evidence that the skills help with a range of difficulties, and also that the studies were not strong enough to say so with confidence (Valentine and colleagues, Journal of Clinical Psychology, 2015). Most of those studies were groups run by a trained person, not someone at a kitchen table with a workbook.
So the truthful version is this. The skills are simple, most of them are gentle enough to try at home, and plenty of people find them useful without a therapist. I did, and I still use them most days. What the research cannot tell you is that a book will do what a course does.
How to learn them on your own
A few things that made the difference for me.
- One skill at a time. Not the whole curriculum. Pick the one that matches the moment you keep landing in. If that moment is “everything is too much”, start with distress tolerance.
- Practise on an ordinary day. From the coping skills page of my journal: when I was first learning them, my mind would go completely blank the moment I needed them most. To combat this, I started surrounding myself with notes, posters, post-its and journals. A skill you have only read about is not there when you need it. A skill you have done ten times on a Tuesday is.
- Keep the pages close. Beside the bed, by the kettle, in your bag. The skills section of my journal is at the front for exactly this reason.
- Write down what happened. After you use a skill, a few lines: how was I feeling before, what did I try, how am I feeling now. That is the whole of the reflection pages in my journal, and it is how you find out which skills are yours.
- Skip what does not fit. If sitting with a feeling makes it bigger, do a grounding skill instead. If a breathing exercise winds you up, stop. There is no wrong way to look after yourself.
Where the journal and the workbook fit
The Self-Soothing Journal is the everyday version. The skills I lean on most sit at the front (5-4-3-2-1 grounding, mindful breathing, distraction ideas, the Worry Tree, the emotions wheel, a coping playlist), then reflection pages for writing up what you tried, then space to pour everything out. It is for keeping the skills close and using them, not for studying them.
The DBT Skills Workbook is the study version, one printable book covering all four skill areas with fill-in exercises for each skill. It is being rebuilt page by page at the moment, starting with the in-the-moment skills, and it will come to the shop when it is ready. If you want the skills laid out as a course, that is the one to wait for.
Either way, the Worry Tree is free on your phone now: one question, is this something I can do anything about, which is a small piece of distress tolerance you can start with tonight.
When to ask for a clinician
Self-help skills are for the everyday. Some things are not everyday, and this is where I would ask for more than a book.
- If feelings are so big and so frequent that they are getting in the way of work, relationships or keeping yourself safe.
- If you are using skills every day and nothing is shifting after a few months.
- If you find yourself in a crisis, or close to one, more than very rarely.
In England you can refer yourself to NHS talking therapies for anxiety and low mood without going through a GP (NHS talking therapies). For full DBT, or if things feel more complicated than that, your GP is the door, and it is fine to walk up to it and say “I think I need more than I can do on my own.” That is not failing at the skills. Asking for help is one of them.
It is educational self-help, not therapy or medical advice. If today feels heavier than a page of skills can hold, please talk to someone. The helplines at the bottom of this page are there for exactly that.