The Ins and Outs of Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT) and…

…A Sneak Peek at Mental Health Recovery Collages

“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I’ll try again tomorrow.” ~ Mary Anne Radmacher

Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT) is not something that I have personal experience with, but I know that it is a therapy used to help people with mental illness. The Canadian Association of Mental Health and Addiction (CAMH, 2025) says that DBT contains two guiding principles: acceptance (a client’s feelings are valid responses to challenging life circumstances), and change (that a client’s goal is to work on changing behaviours that are negatively impacting their lives).

DBT uses 4 tools (CAMH, 2025):

• Mindfulness: being in the present and observing thoughts
• Distress tolerance: the ability to accept and regulate when a big stress occurs
• Interpersonal effectiveness: the ability to create appropriate boundaries and ask for needs while maintaining a reciprocal relationship
• Emotion regulation: the ability to regulate distressing emotions

Although DBT was created from CBT, there is a fundamental difference: DBT therapists validate that problematic thoughts and feelings are natural responses to difficult life circumstances rather than just seeing these thoughts and feelings as cognitive distortions (Harvard Health, 2025). DBT has been very effective for working with those people with lived experience of borderline personality disorder (BPD) and who self-harm. There is more research supporting evidence that DBT is helpful for other mental illnesses.