Dialectical Behavior Therapy
DBT therapy in Houston for intense emotions, self-destructive patterns, borderline personality disorder, and co-occurring substance use. Heights delivers dialectical behavior therapy skills in group and individual formats across PHP, IOP, and evening outpatient care.
01Four Skill Modules
02Group and Individual Formats
03Every Level of Care
04Private Pay · Superbills
What It Is
Dialectical Behavior Therapy was built for people whose emotions arrive fast, hit hard, and take a long time to come down. In that state, the strategies that occur to you in the moment, using, raging, disappearing, tend to be the ones that make life smaller. DBT starts from a dialectic, two things true at once: you are doing the best you can, and you need better tools.
The treatment is unusually concrete. DBT teaches four skill families. Mindfulness is the ability to notice what is happening inside you without immediately acting on it. Distress tolerance is surviving a crisis without making it worse. Emotion regulation is understanding what feeds an emotion and how to change its course. Interpersonal effectiveness is asking, refusing, and setting limits while keeping both the relationship and your self-respect.
This is not advice to calm down. It is a training program for a nervous system that runs hot, practiced until the skills are available in the exact moment you need them.
The Evidence
DBT is one of the most researched psychotherapies of the last three decades. Developed by Dr. Marsha Linehan, it carries strong evidence for reducing self-harm and suicidal behavior and for treating borderline personality disorder, with growing support in substance use, eating disorders, and emotion dysregulation more broadly. It appears across major clinical guidelines and federal evidence reviews.
The research also shows DBT works best as a package: skills teaching plus individual therapy plus real-world coaching, which is how it is delivered here. The right length depends on what the skills need to hold up against, so we will not quote a session count before an assessment.
Who It Helps
Fast, intense emotional surges that take hours to come down from and leave damage behind.
DBT has some of the strongest evidence in existence for reducing self-harming and suicidal behavior.
The condition DBT was originally built for, with decades of controlled research behind it.
When using is how you survive an unbearable feeling, distress tolerance offers another way through the hour.
Cycles of closeness, conflict, and cutoff that repeat the same pattern and leave you isolated.
Spending, rage, messages you cannot take back. DBT builds the pause between urge and action.
The Four Modules
01
Observing what is happening inside and around you without being swept away by it.
02
Surviving crisis moments without making them worse, one skill at a time.
03
Understanding what emotions do, then changing their intensity instead of obeying them.
04
Asking, refusing, and repairing so relationships stop being the trigger.
What To Expect
DBT at Heights runs on two tracks. In skills group, you learn the modules the way you would learn any demanding skill: taught, practiced, repeated. In individual sessions, you and your clinician apply those skills to your actual week, working from an honest record of what happened and what you tried.
Expect practice between sessions, and expect it to be taken seriously. A distress tolerance skill only becomes yours after it has been used on a bad night, and your clinician will want to know how it went, not whether you meant to try it.
Expect honesty in both directions. DBT clinicians name avoidance when they see it and validate what is genuinely hard. Both halves matter. That is the dialectic.
Where It Fits
DBT skills are woven through our levels of care. In Individualized Intensive Programming, skills work can be coached through your entire week rather than one hour of it. In PHP and IOP, DBT skills groups run as a core part of the weekly schedule.
DBT pairs naturally with ACT, which adds values and direction to the stability DBT builds. When trauma sits underneath the emotional storm, EMDR can address it once you are steady enough. This page sits alongside our mental health treatment program and our dual diagnosis care.
Who Delivers It
DBT at Heights Behavioral Health is taught and coached by licensed clinicians, all at the master level or above, working as one team with our trauma specialists, including three EMDR-trained clinicians and a clinician trained in Somatic Experiencing. With a Medical Director and psychiatrists on staff, medication questions are answered inside the same team instead of being referred out.
Clinical care is led by Joni Ogle, LCSW, CSAT, who has been licensed for more than 37 years and specializes in trauma and co-occurring conditions.
Guides and Resources
Plain-language articles from our clinical team on emotional regulation, distress tolerance, and building skills that hold under pressure.
Equine-Assisted Psychotherapy: What Actually Happens at the Ranch
Internal Family Systems: Why Therapists Keep Talking About Parts
Somatic Experiencing: Trauma Treatment That Starts in the Body
Ready When You Are
Talk confidentially with admissions about DBT at Heights and the level of care that fits your life.
Start Confidentially
Tell us a little about what is going on and the best way to reach you. A member of our admissions team will follow up personally and walk you through next steps. Please do not include sensitive medical details in the form.
Common Questions
If you do not see your question here, call our admissions team at (877) 549-5102 and we will walk you through it.
Heights Behavioral Health is a private-pay, out-of-network practice. We provide superbills so you can pursue out-of-network reimbursement if your plan offers it, and we can verify your benefits before you commit. See our admissions page.
No. BPD is where DBT began and where its evidence runs deepest, but the skills help anyone whose emotions outrun their tools: intense mood swings, chronic impulsivity, self-destructive coping, or relationships that keep collapsing under the same pattern.
Mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness. Each is a set of concrete, practicable techniques, and they build on one another. Mindfulness comes first, because noticing what you feel before acting on it is the foundation every other skill stands on.
Full DBT programs are typically described in months rather than weeks, because skills need repetition before they hold under pressure. How long yours takes depends on what you are carrying and what the skills need to withstand. We will not quote you a number before an assessment.
No. Plenty of people learn DBT skills because life keeps costing more than it should: jobs, relationships, self-respect. If your emotional responses feel bigger than the situations that trigger them, the skills apply long before anything looks like an emergency.
Yes. DBT has been adapted specifically for substance use, and the fit is direct: cravings and triggers are exactly the kind of overwhelming internal event distress tolerance was built for. At Heights, DBT skills run alongside addiction treatment rather than instead of it.
Both, depending on your treatment plan. DBT skills are taught and practiced in structured group settings, and individual sessions apply them to what is actually happening in your life. Your level of care, from PHP through Evening IOP, determines the mix that makes sense for you.
Our admissions team answers seven days a week, from 8:00 am to 7:30 pm Central Time. Call (877) 549-5102 to talk with a real person about what is going on, your schedule, and whether our programs are the right fit. If you reach out after hours, leave a message or send the consultation form and we will return your call as soon as we open. If this is an emergency, call 911. If you or someone you love is in a mental health crisis, call or text 988.
Clinical Review
Written by Joni Ogle, LCSW, CSAT, CEO of Heights Behavioral Health, and clinically reviewed by Deborah Darnell-Drake, LCSW-S, ACSW, LMFT, Chief Clinical Officer. Heights Behavioral Health provides licensed outpatient behavioral health care for adults in Houston, Texas, delivered by master’s-level clinicians and licensed professionals. This page is intended to explain HBH services and does not replace an individualized clinical assessment. Last reviewed October 2026.
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Every program, condition, and specialty at Heights connects to one coordinated outpatient team in the Houston Heights. Start wherever fits your situation, or call admissions and we will point you to the right place.
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“From my very first interaction, I felt welcomed, respected, and genuinely cared for. The staff took the time to listen, answer my questions, and create a treatment plan that fit my needs.”
“Heights offered treatment three evenings a week, which made it possible for them to work during the day and still get consistent support.”
“Our family was scared and unsure where to turn. From the first conversation with Jeff and Beckie to walking through the doors, we felt genuinely cared for.”
Contact Admissions
One confidential call, an honest assessment, and a clear answer about whether DBT belongs in your plan.
Crisis Notice: Heights Behavioral Health is not an emergency service. If you or someone you love is in immediate danger, call 911. If you are in a mental health crisis, call or text 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, available 24/7.
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