DBT Skills Library

TIPP works by changing your body's physical state directly. When you're in crisis, your nervous system is flooded — TIPP interrupts that at a biological level, not a thinking level.

1. Temperature — Cool your body fast. Hold ice, splash cold water on your face, put your wrists under cold running water. This triggers the dive reflex and slows your heart rate within seconds.
2. Intense Exercise — Move hard for 1–2 minutes. Run on the spot, jumping jacks, push-ups. You can't think your way out of a crisis but you can move through it.
3. Paced Breathing — Breathe out longer than you breathe in. In for 4, out for 6. The longer exhale activates your parasympathetic nervous system — the part that calms you down.
4. Progressive Muscle Relaxation — Tense each muscle group for 5 seconds then release. Start with your feet, work upward. The contrast signals safety to your nervous system.

ACCEPTS is a set of distraction strategies. The goal isn't to solve the problem — it's to interrupt the crisis loop long enough for the intensity to drop naturally.

1. Activities — Do something absorbing. A puzzle, a game, cleaning, cooking — anything that fully occupies your attention.
2. Contributing — Do something for someone else. Send a kind message, help with something small. Shifting focus outward breaks the inward spiral.
3. Comparisons — Remind yourself of times you've coped before, or of others facing greater difficulty. Not to minimise — to remind yourself you have survived hard things.
4. Opposite Emotions — Do something that generates a different emotion. Watch something funny, listen to music that lifts you.
5. Pushing Away — Mentally put the situation in a box and set it aside — just for now. You can come back to it when you're calmer.
6. Other Thoughts — Deliberately occupy your mind. Count backwards from 100 in 7s, recite something you know by heart.
7. Sensations — Use intense but safe physical sensations. Hold ice, taste something very sour, smell something strong.

Use your five senses deliberately to comfort and calm yourself. This is not indulgence — it is using your nervous system's existing pathways to signal safety.

1. Vision — Look at something beautiful or calming. Go outside, look at the sky, light a candle.
2. Hearing — Listen to music that soothes you, rain sounds, or silence. Sound has a direct route to your nervous system.
3. Smell — Smell something you associate with comfort or safety. Smell is the most direct sense connected to memory and emotion.
4. Taste — Have something warm or comforting. Eat slowly and pay attention to the taste — this brings you into the present moment.
5. Touch — Wrap yourself in something soft, have a warm shower, hold something comforting. Physical comfort communicates safety.

STOP is a four-step pause between feeling something and acting on it. When emotions are high, the gap between impulse and action almost disappears — STOP creates that gap deliberately.

1. Stop — Don't act. Freeze for a moment.
2. Take a step back — Physically or mentally. Breathe. Don't let the emotion make the decision.
3. Observe — What is actually happening? What are you feeling? What are the facts of the situation?
4. Proceed mindfully — Act in a way that fits your values and your long-term interests, not just the immediate feeling.

Radical acceptance means accepting reality as it is — not agreeing with it, not liking it, not giving up on changing it. Just stopping the fight against the fact that it is happening.

Pain is inevitable. Suffering comes from refusing to accept the pain. When you fight against reality — "this shouldn't be happening", "it's not fair" — you add suffering on top of pain.

Acceptance doesn't mean it's okay. It means: this is real, it is happening, and I can choose how I respond to what is real.

Radical acceptance is not a one-time decision. It's something you return to, sometimes many times in the same situation.

DBT describes three states of mind: Emotion Mind (ruled entirely by feeling), Reasonable Mind (ruled entirely by logic and facts), and Wise Mind — the integration of both.

Wise Mind is not the absence of emotion. It is the place where you can feel something fully and still make a considered decision. Most people have access to it — it often feels like a quiet knowing underneath the noise.

To access Wise Mind: pause, breathe, and ask yourself — not "what do I feel?" or "what does logic say?" but "what do I know, deep down, is true here?"

This skill is about observing an emotion without immediately acting on it, suppressing it, or judging yourself for having it.

Notice the emotion as if from a distance. Where is it in your body? What does it feel like physically? What is it urging you to do? You don't have to act on the urge — you just have to notice it.

Emotions are not facts. Feeling something strongly does not make it true, permanent, or a command to act. Practising observation creates space between the feeling and the response.

Validation means acknowledging that your emotional reaction makes sense — given what you've been through, given how you're wired, given the situation.

Many people who grew up in invalidating environments learned to invalidate themselves — to dismiss, judge, or be ashamed of their own feelings. Self-validation is the practice of undoing that.

It doesn't mean every reaction is proportionate or that every feeling should be acted on. It means: I feel this, and that is real, and I am not wrong for feeling it.

Start small: when you notice a feeling, instead of "I shouldn't feel this," try "it makes sense that I feel this, given everything."

Emotions are often triggered by interpretations of events, not the events themselves. Checking the Facts asks: is my emotional reaction matching what is actually happening, or what I think is happening?

1. What is the emotion I'm feeling?
2. What event triggered it?
3. What are my interpretations and assumptions about that event?
4. What are the actual facts — what would a camera record?
5. Does my emotion fit the facts, or does it fit my interpretation?
6. If the emotion doesn't fit the facts, what would help me respond to what's actually there?

This is not about dismissing your feelings — it is about making sure you're responding to reality rather than a story about reality.

This is a physical practice for acceptance. The body and the mind communicate in both directions — you can use your posture and expression to signal acceptance to your nervous system, even before you feel it.

Half-Smile: Soften your face very slightly — not a forced smile, just a gentle relaxation of the muscles around your mouth and eyes. This is the expression of acceptance, not happiness.

Willing Hands: Turn your hands palms-up, fingers relaxed, resting on your lap or by your sides. This is the physical posture of openness rather than resistance.

Use this when you are fighting against a situation you cannot change. It doesn't make the situation okay — it reduces the suffering that comes from resistance.

Urges — to act, to escape, to do something impulsive — are like waves. They build, peak, and pass. They do not keep rising indefinitely, even when it feels like they will.

Urge surfing means riding the wave rather than being knocked over by it. You observe the urge — its intensity, where it is in your body, how it changes — without acting on it.

Most urges peak within 20–30 minutes if you don't feed them. Each time you surf an urge rather than act on it, you build evidence that you can tolerate it — and the next one becomes slightly more manageable.

When you're in distress and feeling the urge to act, Pros and Cons asks you to slow down and think through both sides — before you act, not after.

Write out (or mentally go through) four things:

1. Pros of acting on the urge
2. Cons of acting on the urge
3. Pros of tolerating the distress and not acting
4. Cons of tolerating the distress and not acting

This isn't about talking yourself out of your feelings. It's about making a conscious choice rather than an automatic one. Do this during calm moments too — it's harder to think clearly in crisis, so having thought it through before helps.

IMPROVE is a set of strategies for making a difficult moment more bearable when you can't change the situation itself.

1. Imagery — Visualise a safe, calm place or a positive outcome. Use your imagination as a resource.
2. Meaning — Find or create some meaning in the situation. What might this teach you? What are you doing it for?
3. Prayer — Connect with something larger than yourself, in whatever form that takes for you.
4. Relaxation — Use muscle relaxation, slow breathing, or anything that reduces physical tension.
5. One thing in the moment — Focus entirely on what you are doing right now. One thing at a time.
6. Vacation — Give yourself a brief mental or physical break. Step away, even briefly.
7. Encouragement — Talk to yourself the way you would talk to someone you love. "You can do this. This will pass."

Every emotion comes with an action urge — fear urges avoidance, anger urges attack, shame urges hiding. Opposite Action means doing the opposite of what the emotion is pushing you to do, when that emotion isn't serving you.

This is not suppressing the emotion. It's changing your behaviour, which over time changes the emotional experience itself.

1. Identify the emotion and its action urge
2. Check whether acting on the urge fits the facts and your long-term goals
3. If not — identify the opposite action
4. Do the opposite action fully, not half-heartedly

Examples: fear of a situation → approach it gradually rather than avoid it. Shame about something → share it with a safe person rather than hide it. Anger at someone → act with kindness rather than attack.

DEAR MAN is a structure for asking for what you need or saying no effectively — especially when it feels hard or when emotions are running high.

1. Describe — State the facts of the situation clearly, without judgment.
2. Express — Say how you feel about it. Use "I feel..." not "you make me feel..."
3. Assert — Say clearly what you want or don't want. Don't hint — ask directly.
4. Reinforce — Explain why it matters, or what the positive outcome would be.
5. Mindful — Stay focused on your goal. Don't get pulled into arguments or distractions.
6. Appear confident — Even if you don't feel it, use a steady voice and direct eye contact.
7. Negotiate — Be willing to find a middle ground. Ask what the other person needs too.

GIVE is for maintaining and protecting relationships — especially during difficult conversations. Where DEAR MAN focuses on getting what you need, GIVE focuses on keeping the relationship intact while you do it.

1. Gentle — No attacks, no threats, no contempt. Even when it's hard.
2. Interested — Listen to the other person. Show that their perspective matters.
3. Validate — Acknowledge their feelings and point of view, even if you disagree.
4. Easy manner — Keep the tone light where possible. A little warmth goes a long way.

FAST is for maintaining your self-respect in relationships and interactions — particularly important for people who tend to people-please, over-apologise, or abandon their own values to keep the peace.

1. Fair — Be fair to yourself as well as the other person. Your needs matter too.
2. Apologies (no excessive) — Don't apologise for existing, for having needs, or for things that aren't your fault.
3. Stick to values — Don't compromise what you believe in to avoid conflict or to please someone else.
4. Truthful — Don't lie, exaggerate, or be helpless to get what you want. Be honest about what you need.