Four skill areas
Mindfulness (attention and awareness), distress tolerance (surviving crisis), emotion regulation (changing the intensity), and interpersonal effectiveness (asking, refusing, holding a relationship).
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) Skills, skills for the feelings that feel like too much
Jasper Grove incorporates DBT-informed skills — distress tolerance, emotion regulation, mindfulness, and interpersonal effectiveness — within residential treatment for substance use disorder. Dialectical behavior therapy was built for people whose emotions arrive fast and hard, and it teaches concrete skills for surviving those moments without making them worse. For anyone who has used to get through an unbearable feeling, that is exactly the gap those skills fill.
What it helps with
Where this does its work.
Emotions that escalate faster than you can manage them
Getting through a crisis without using
Tolerating distress that cannot be immediately fixed
Impulsivity and acting before thinking
Relationships that are hard to keep steady
Asking for what you need, and refusing what you don't
Staying present instead of being carried off by a feeling
What to expect
How the work actually goes.
No jargon, no mystery. Here's what this looks like as part of your care at Jasper Grove.
Skills you practise, not theory
These skills are taught. You learn specific techniques with names, practise them, and report back on what happened when you used them.
Both-and, not either-or
The 'dialectical' part means holding two true things at once: you are doing the best you can, and you need to do things differently. Neither cancels the other, and that stance is the method.
Distress tolerance first
Early work focuses on getting through the moments that have historically ended in use, because everything else depends on surviving those.
Skills-based, inside residential care
DBT-informed skills are taught within the residential program and applied to your own situations with your counselor. This is a skills component of addiction treatment rather than a comprehensive DBT program.
Ready to start the work?
Admissions answers 24/7. One call starts your plan and checks your coverage.
Call (317) 527-4529
Where it fits
About residential treatment
One part of a bigger plan, under one roof.
Therapy isn't a separate program you sign up for — it's woven through residential treatment at Jasper Grove, alongside medical care and the other work of recovery. It's accepted through Indiana Medicaid and most major insurance, and we verify your exact cost up front before you commit to anything.
Common questions
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) Skills, answered.
What are DBT-informed skills, and how do they help with addiction?
Dialectical behavior therapy teaches four skill sets — mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness. Jasper Grove incorporates those skills into residential addiction treatment because they directly address the moment where an unbearable feeling has historically been solved with a substance, and give you something else to do there.
Is this a full DBT program?
No. Jasper Grove delivers DBT-informed skills within residential treatment for substance use disorder — not comprehensive DBT, which is a distinct, longer-term programme with its own structure. If comprehensive DBT is what you need, your counselor can help identify it as part of aftercare planning.
How is DBT different from CBT?
DBT grew out of CBT and keeps its structure, but adds an explicit focus on accepting distress rather than only changing thoughts, and on emotional intensity and relationships. CBT tends to fit thought-pattern work; DBT skills fit emotional volatility, impulsivity, and crisis. They are often used together, and at Jasper Grove you may work with both.
What is distress tolerance?
A set of techniques for surviving an intense moment without making it worse — including physical interventions like cold water on the face, deliberate distraction, and self-soothing. It isn't about fixing the situation. It's about getting through the twenty minutes where the urge is at its peak.
Who do these skills help most?
They tend to be most useful when overwhelming emotion is part of the picture — which is common when a substance use disorder and a mental-health condition occur together. What your plan draws on is set by your assessment rather than assumed.
More therapy
Part of a fuller range of care.
The right therapy is different for each person — your plan draws on the ones that fit you. Explore the rest:
Take the next step
The right therapy is part of the right plan.
You don't have to sort out which approach you need — that's our job. Admissions answers 24/7. Call and we'll help you find the right starting point, and verify your coverage first.