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California Mental Health is a premier residential mental health facility serving clients across California. Learn concrete skills for managing overwhelming emotions.
DBT covers distress tolerance, emotion regulation, mindfulness, and interpersonal effectiveness in a structured format. Our clinicians coach you through using each skill in real moments.
Supervision and support 24 hours a day
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Dual diagnosis and co-occurring care
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Dialectical Behavior Therapy is a structured form of talk therapy built for people whose emotions arrive fast, run hot, and take a long time to settle. The “dialectical” part is the core idea: two things that seem opposed can both be true. You can accept yourself exactly as you are right now and still work hard to change. Many people who arrive at DBT have been told one or the other for years. The therapy’s job is to hold both.
In practice, DBT is a skills curriculum as much as a conversation. Four modules, mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness, are taught in a group, tracked on a diary card between sessions, and brought into individual therapy to work on whatever came up that week. It was developed for borderline personality disorder and has since shown strong results for self-harm, chronic suicidal thinking, eating disorders, and substance use.
At California Mental Health, DBT skills group runs daily in residential care and continues by secure video in our Virtual Intensive Outpatient Program, with individual DBT sessions alongside. Because clinical staff are on site around the clock in residential care, a skill can be coached in the moment it is needed rather than discussed a week later.
Contact us for 24/7 confidential support and find out whether DBT is the right fit for what you are carrying.
If this is an emergency
DBT was built in part to reduce self-harm and suicidal crises, but it works over weeks, not minutes. If you are in danger right now or thinking about ending your life, dial or text 988. The Suicide and Crisis Lifeline picks up 24 hours a day, and 911 is the number for immediate physical danger.
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Executive Director
Program Director/Operations Manager
Executive Director
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Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) is a highly effective and evidence-based approach essential to mental health and well-being. Initially designed for borderline personality disorder, DBT has evolved to be applied across a broad spectrum of mental health conditions and challenges. Here are vital reasons highlighting the significance of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy:
DBT is highly effective in reducing suicidal behaviors and self-harming actions, offering a life-saving intervention for individuals at risk.
DBT instructs individuals on how to endure distressing situations without resorting to harmful coping mechanisms, such as self-harm or substance abuse.
DBT is effective in preventing relapse in conditions such as substance abuse, eating disorders, and depression, promoting long-term recovery.
DBT equips individuals with practical life skills, such as budgeting, time management, and problem-solving, essential for overall well-being.
DBT fosters emotional resilience, enabling individuals to better cope with life’s challenges and adversities.
DBT provides individuals with valuable skills for enhancing interpersonal relationships, including assertiveness, conflict resolution, and boundary-setting.
DBT employs a range of evidence-based techniques and strategies, ensuring that individuals receive adequate treatment for their mental health concerns.
DBT promotes self-acceptance and self-compassion, which are particularly important for individuals struggling with self-esteem and self-worth.
DBT has been shown to reduce hospitalization rates and improve individual’s ability to manage their conditions outside clinical settings.
DBT teaches adaptive coping strategies that can be applied to daily life, helping individuals manage stress, anxiety, and other emotional challenges.
DBT is a skills-based therapy that teaches individuals practical strategies to manage intense emotions, improve interpersonal relationships, and enhance overall well-being.
DBT emphasizes balancing accepting yourself and your current circumstances while working towards change and personal growth.
DBT typically includes both individual therapy and group skills training. You’ll work closely with a therapist in individual therapy to address your specific challenges and goals. In group skills training, you’ll learn and practice DBT skills with others facing similar issues.
DBT’s Emotion Regulation equips individuals to manage intense emotions by identifying, labeling, and enhancing positive experiences. It develops strategies to reduce vulnerability to negativity, fostering emotional balance and resilience in life’s challenges.
Mindfulness skills facilitate increased awareness of your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors in the present
Distress tolerance skills teach you how to improve tolerance and cope with distressing
Emotion regulation skills help you identify, understand, and manage intense emotions
Interpersonal effectiveness skills center on enhancing communication and building relationships,
Here is how the four modules map onto ordinary hard moments, and what you would actually do in each one:
What’s Happening | Skill Module | What You Practice |
A text sets off anger far bigger than the situation | Emotion Regulation | Check the facts, name the emotion, and act opposite to the urge |
A 2 a.m. spiral with an urge to do something you will regret | Distress Tolerance | Paced breathing, a pre-made distraction list, and a plan to get through the next twenty minutes without acting |
Replaying a conversation and feeling worse each time | Mindfulness | Notice the thought, label it as a thought, and bring attention back to what is in front of you |
Needing to say no without blowing up the relationship | Interpersonal Effectiveness | Describe the situation, express how you feel, state the ask plainly, and hold the line calmly |
DBT does not stand alone at California Mental Health. Two related entries on our Therapy Options page shape how it is delivered:
DBT grew out of CBT and still uses its basic machinery: tracking thoughts, testing them, and changing behavior on purpose.
DBT skills group is a classroom; process group is where the skills get stress-tested in real relationships.
DBT was initially developed to treat BPD and remains one of the most effective treatments for this condition.
DBT skills can be valuable for individuals with eating disorders to address emotional eating and body image concerns.
DBT can be beneficial for individuals dealing with mood disorders like depression and bipolar disorder, as it provides skills to navigate emotional fluctuations effectively.
DBT can be integrated into substance abuse treatment to help individuals manage cravings, cope with triggers, and build a foundation for recovery.
Full DBT needs repetition: group to learn a skill, individual sessions to apply it, and real moments to use it. Both of our programs provide that cycle. See What We Treat for the conditions DBT addresses and the Levels of Care overview for how clients move between settings.
Residential care is where DBT tends to take hold fastest, because the moments that trigger old patterns happen with staff nearby. Skills group runs daily, you meet your individual therapist twice a week, and a licensed nurse is on site 24 hours a day. For clients arriving from a hospital stay, we stabilize medications and sleep first and begin skills work as soon as you can take it in.
Our virtual program keeps the DBT structure intact by secure video: skills group several times a week, weekly individual sessions, and a diary card you complete between meetings. It suits adults with a stable, safe home base, whether stepping down from residential care or starting here.
Skills learned where life actually happens. Contact California Mental Health at (408) 457-1453 or visit our Contact Us page for a free, confidential assessment to begin your journey toward recovery and renewed hope.
Four steps take you from first contact to your first skills group:
Admissions is staffed 24/7 and the conversation is confidential; you can ask questions without committing to anything.
We check your benefits for you, or you can submit the quick form on Verify Insurance and we follow up with what your plan covers.
A clinician looks at emotional intensity, safety, your history with other therapies, and what has and has not helped, then recommends a level of care.
In residential care that is usually within a day of admission; in Virtual IOP, at the next scheduled group.
If you’re interested in DBT or have questions about how it can benefit you, contact us today to schedule an initial consultation. Together with your therapist, you can work towards building essential skills for emotional regulation, distress tolerance, interpersonal effectiveness, and mindfulness at California Mental Health.
If you have been searching for dialectical behavior therapy near you, California Mental Health runs full DBT programming at two licensed homes in San Martin, in the southern part of Santa Clara County, and by secure video for adults anywhere in California. Both homes are a short drive from Morgan Hill, Gilroy, and San Jose, and you can see them on our Tour Our Facility page:
DBT was developed for borderline personality disorder and is now a first-line treatment for self-harm, chronic suicidal thinking, and emotion dysregulation of any origin. It is also used for eating disorders, substance use, PTSD, and bipolar disorder when mood swings drive impulsive behavior. See What We Treat for the full list of conditions we address.
CBT focuses on changing distorted thoughts and unhelpful behaviors. DBT keeps that but adds acceptance, mindfulness, and distress tolerance skills for people whose emotions are too intense for standard thought-challenging to reach. If you have tried CBT and felt it did not stick, DBT is often the next step.
A full outpatient DBT program typically runs six months to a year. In residential care, clients cover the four skill modules in a condensed cycle during their stay and keep practicing afterward in Virtual IOP or with an outpatient therapist. Length depends on how quickly the skills take hold and on the conditions being treated.
Yes. We accept most PPO plans, including Cigna, Aetna, Anthem, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Carelon, and GEHA, among others. Use Verify Insurance to check your coverage before you call.
Yes. Our Virtual Intensive Outpatient Program delivers DBT skills group and individual sessions by secure video to adults across California. Residential clients attend in person at our San Martin homes.
Yes. Residential Treatment includes daily DBT skills group and twice-weekly individual DBT, with staff coaching between sessions. The Virtual Intensive Outpatient Program continues the same curriculum by video with weekly diary-card review. Your clinician recommends the level that matches your current safety and stability.
You do not have to choose between accepting yourself and changing. Contact California Mental Health at (408) 457-1453 or visit our Contact Us page for a free, confidential assessment to begin your journey toward recovery and renewed hope.
