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Our goal is to help our clients find a life worth living.
We provide comprehensive, evidence-based DBT for adolescents and adults with emotion regulation difficulties, including self-harm, suicidality, substance use, eating disorders, and personality disorders.
We also offer Radically Open DBT (RO-DBT), an evidence-based treatment for overcontrolled coping styles. Learn more or take our quiz to see if it’s a good fit.
We are one of the few local providers offering the full DBT program: individual therapy, skills training, phone coaching, and therapist consultation.
Page Overview
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is a structured, skills-based form of therapy that helps people manage intense emotions, reduce harmful behaviors, and improve relationships.
DBT was originally created in the late 1980s by Marsha Linehan, a psychologist who was working with people who experienced chronic suicidality and had not improved with traditional therapy. Dr. Linehan noticed that many clients were being told to “change” without first feeling understood or accepted. DBT was designed to balance acceptance (“you are doing the best you can”) with change (“and you can learn new skills to cope more effectively”).
DBT is now one of the most researched treatments for emotion regulation difficulties and is used worldwide.
Research shows DBT helps reduce self-harm, suicide attempts, emotional outbursts, and repeated crisis situations, while improving overall functioning and quality of life. DBT is especially helpful for people who:
DBT may be a good fit if emotions feel overwhelming or hard to control, or if behaviors are getting in the way of school, work, relationships, or safety.
Because DBT is skills-based and structured, it can be especially helpful for people who want practical tools they can use in everyday life.
DBT is often recommended when:
DBT is commonly used to treat:
DBT has also been shown to reduce emergency room visits and psychiatric hospitalizations.
Radically Open DBT (RO-DBT) is an evidence-based treatment for people who cope through over-control rather than impulsivity.
While standard DBT focuses on reducing undercontrolled behaviors (like emotional outbursts or self-harm), RO-DBT focuses on increasing openness, flexibility, and social connection.
RO-DBT is designed for people who:
In addition to DBT for adults, research supports DBT adaptations for children and adolescents, showing reductions in self-harm and suicidal ideation. At UCEBT, we offer DBT for:
The overall goal of DBT is to help clients build a life worth living. This includes:
A full DBT program (like what we offer at UCEBT) includes four critical components. Research shows DBT is most effective when all four components are included:
The four components of DBT provide a structure that helps clients learn skills, practice them consistently, and apply them in real-life situations where they matter most:
Clients usually participate in weekly individual therapy, which focuses on setting goals, tracking behaviors, and applying DBT skills to real-life challenges. Individual sessions help prioritize safety, reduce behaviors that interfere with progress, and strengthen skill use.
Weekly skills training provides structured teaching and practice of DBT skills, helping clients build tools for managing emotions, tolerating distress, and improving relationships. Skills are practiced over time so they become easier to use under stress.
Phone coaching, offered as needed, helps clients apply skills in the moment when challenges arise outside of sessions. This support focuses on skill use rather than crisis processing and helps bridge therapy and daily life.
Ongoing therapist consultation ensures therapists receive support from other DBT-trained clinicians. This collaboration helps maintain high-quality, consistent, and evidence-based care.
Skills training is a core part of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT). It teaches practical tools that help people cope with strong emotions, stress, and relationship challenges.
Instead of focusing only on talking about problems, skills training helps clients learn what to do in the moment when emotions feel overwhelming or urges are strong.
DBT skills training focuses on four main areas:
Mindfulness skills help people notice thoughts, emotions, and body sensations in the present moment without judgment. These skills support greater awareness, reduce automatic reactions, and help people make intentional choices.
Distress tolerance skills help people get through intense emotional moments without making the situation worse. They are used during crises or when problems cannot be solved right away and focus on staying safe and reducing impulsive behaviors.
Emotion regulation skills help people understand their emotions and reduce emotional vulnerability over time. These skills support emotional stability, increase positive experiences, and help people feel less controlled by their emotions.
Interpersonal effectiveness skills help people communicate clearly, set boundaries, and balance their needs with the needs of others. These skills reduce conflict and support healthier relationships.
Research shows that learning and practicing DBT skills is strongly linked to reduced self-harm, improved emotional control, and better overall functioning.
UCEBT was originally founded, in part, to provide a training program for doctoral students to receive clinical training using a full DBT model. At the time UCEBT was founded, we were one of the only centers in the state of Utah to offer a full DBT program with all 4 components. To this day, many mental health providers in Utah still offer only selected components of DBT and not the full program. For this reason, we often receive clients from other providers who recognize their clients’ need for the full DBT program.
Additionally, our DBT team has completed the Behavioral Tech Official DBT Intensive Training. Further, our DBT therapists make a commitment to ongoing education in DBT, other evidence-based treatments, suicide prevention, integrating trauma-based approaches with DBT, and ethics.
DBT length varies based on individual needs and goals. Research suggests that longer treatment (often 6–12 months or more) allows time to learn, practice, and apply skills, leading to better long-term outcomes.
Gain clarity, build resilience, and create meaningful change. Let’s work together to help you thrive and achieve the life you envision.
The unique mission of UCEBT is to improve the quality of mental health care by enhancing access to comprehensive evidence-based treatments, evaluations, and testing.
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Business Address:
170 S 1000 E, Suite 201
Salt Lake City, UT
84102
Business Hours:
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