Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT)

Dialectical behaviour therapy, or DBT, was originally developed for people who feel everything intensely and struggled to find steady ground. It’s grown into one of the most effective, well-researched approaches for building emotional stability more broadly. If your emotions feel like they move faster than you can keep up with, or if you find yourself reacting in ways you later regret, DBT gives you concrete, practical skills to work with.

How DBT works

In DBT your therapist explores with you the kind of life you want to build, and helps you explore the emotion-driven behaviours that interfere with building that life. The therapy is also organized around helping you build DBT Skills in four areas: mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness. Rather than only talking about what's difficult, these skills help you find ways to ride out a crisis without making it worse, to notice and name what you're feeling before it takes over, and to ask for what you need in relationships more directly. We offer this both in individual sessions, tailored to what you're working on, and in a group skills format for clients who are accessing support as part of an organization or team and want the added support of learning alongside others.

Who this is for

DBT tends to help people who experience:

  • Emotions that feel intense, fast, or difficult to manage

  • Impulsive reactions they wish they could slow down

  • Borderline personality disorder (BPD), though DBT is useful well beyond a BPD diagnosis

  • Ongoing conflict in relationships tied to emotional reactivity

  • A wish for practical, skills-based tools alongside talk therapy

In-person and virtual sessions

DBT sessions are available in person at our Aurora office and virtually for clients across York Region — including Newmarket, Richmond Hill, Vaughan, and Markham — and throughout Ontario. Evening and weekend appointments are available with select clinicians.

Billing is on a sliding scale with select practitioners; see our Fees page for details, or check our FAQs for common questions about getting started.

Let's Start Here

If DBT sounds like it could help, get in touch and we'll talk through what starting therapy with us looks like.