DBT Therapy in Denver
At Mountainside Behavioral Health, we provide specialized Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) to help individuals and families build resilience, regulate emotions, and heal from trauma.
- Inclusive care for all.
- Individual & group DBT sessions.
- Female-owned practice with over a decade of DBT expertise.
Start Your Healing Today
Schedule a free consultation by entering your details below. We will reach out to schedule a time.
What Is DBT Therapy?
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is an evidence-based treatment designed for individuals experiencing intense emotional dysregulation, self-harming behaviors, trauma, or suicidal ideation.
At Mountainside, our clinicians are highly trained in DBT and DBT-Prolonged Exposure (DBT-PE) — a gold-standard treatment combining DBT with trauma-focused therapy for clients with PTSD.
DBT-PE helps clients face avoided trauma memories and situations in a safe, structured way, reducing symptoms and fostering long-term healing.
Denver DBT Skills Groups
We offer Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) skills groups for both adults and teens as part of our comprehensive DBT program. These groups are designed to help participants build practical skills for emotional regulation, distress tolerance, interpersonal effectiveness, and mindfulness in a supportive group setting.
Adult DBT Skills Group
Day: Tuesdays
Time: 11:00 AM – 1:00 PM
Program Length: Approximately 6 months to 1 year
Teen DBT Skills Group
Day: Mondays
Time: 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Program Length: 24 weeks
Both groups are facilitated by trained clinicians and are structured to support meaningful, long-term skill development tailored to the needs of adults and adolescents.
Why Choose Our Denver DBT Therapy?
Expertise
10+ years of intensive DBT & CBT training.
Inclusive Care
Serving children, adolescents, adults, couples, and families.
Compassion-Driven
A female-owned practice dedicated to supporting the Denver community.
Comprehensive Treatment
Individual, group, and trauma-focused DBT care.
Benefits of DBT Therapy
Through DBT, clients gain:
Reduced self-harming behaviors
DBT was developed specifically to help people who self-harm or live with suicidal thoughts, and it remains the most extensively studied treatment for those behaviours. The skills give you something concrete to reach for in the moment an urge arrives, rather than white-knuckling it alone.
Improved emotional regulation
Emotions stop feeling like weather that happens to you. You learn to name what you are feeling, recognise what set it off, and change its intensity — so a difficult morning no longer decides the rest of the week.
Greater resilience in stressful situations
Distress tolerance skills are for the moments you cannot fix or leave: a conflict at work, a panic attack, a wave of grief. The goal is getting through the hardest hour without doing something that makes tomorrow worse.
Healthier relationships
Interpersonal effectiveness teaches you to ask for what you need, say no, and hold a boundary while keeping both the relationship and your self-respect intact. Many clients tell us this is where the people around them notice the change first.
Increased confidence, self-awareness, and purpose
As the skills become habit rather than effort, attention shifts from surviving the week to building what DBT calls a life worth living — one shaped by your own values instead of by symptoms.
The Four DBT Skill Modules
DBT is taught as four sets of skills. Each one targets a different part of what makes intense emotion hard to live with, and together they cover both accepting the moment you are in and changing what you can.
Mindfulness
The foundation the other three rest on. Mindfulness is the practice of noticing what is happening right now — thoughts, sensations, urges — without immediately reacting to it. In DBT this is taught as a concrete skill you drill, not a mood you try to summon.
Distress Tolerance
What to do in a crisis you cannot solve straight away. These skills help you ride out an intense wave — an urge to self-harm, a panic surge, a fight — without turning to something that causes more damage. The aim is survival of the moment, not feeling good about it.
Emotion Regulation
How to identify what you are feeling, understand what triggered it, and reduce your vulnerability to overwhelming emotion in the first place — through sleep, routine, and deliberately building positive experiences alongside the harder work.
Interpersonal Effectiveness
Asking for what you need, declining what you cannot give, and handling conflict without the relationship or your self-respect becoming collateral damage. This is often the module clients find most immediately useful.
Conditions We Treat With DBT in Denver
DBT was originally developed for people experiencing intense emotional dysregulation and chronic suicidality, and its use has since broadened. At Mountainside we most often use DBT with:
- Borderline personality disorder (BPD) — the condition DBT was built for, and where the evidence base is strongest.
- Chronic suicidal ideation and self-harm, including recurring urges that have not responded to other therapies.
- PTSD and complex trauma, using trauma-informed DBT-PE once stabilising skills are in place.
- Depression and anxiety that co-occur with emotional dysregulation.
- Difficulty with anger, impulsivity, and relationships that repeatedly rupture.
If you are not sure whether what you are dealing with fits, that is a reasonable thing to bring to a consultation rather than something to work out on your own first.
What to Expect From DBT at Mountainside
Your free consultation
Before committing to anything, you can speak with us at no cost. This is a short conversation about what is going on, what you are hoping for, and whether DBT is the right fit — including saying so if we think something else would serve you better.
Your first session
DBT begins with a thorough intake assessment. Your therapist will want to understand your history, what brought you here, what you have already tried, and what you want to be different. It is a collaborative conversation, you set the pace, and nothing is shared without your consent.
Individual therapy and skills group
Comprehensive DBT runs on two tracks. Individual sessions apply the skills to your specific circumstances, while the skills group is where they are taught and rehearsed. Our adult group meets Tuesdays, 11:00 AM – 1:00 PM, and typically runs six months to a year. The teen group (ages 12–18) meets Mondays, 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM, over 24 weeks. Both are facilitated by trained clinicians.
In-person and telehealth options
We see clients at our Denver office and by secure telehealth, so treatment can survive a demanding work schedule, a Colorado winter, or a week when leaving the house is more than you have in you.
Session pricing
Individual sessions (45 minutes) are $175–$200. We are an out-of-network practice and provide superbills you can submit to your insurer for potential reimbursement. Full details are on our insurance and pricing page.
Who Is DBT Right For?
DBT tends to be the right choice when emotions arrive faster and harder than you can manage, when the aftermath of those moments is doing real damage to your relationships or your safety, and when insight alone has not been enough. Plenty of people arrive having already had therapy that helped them understand the problem without giving them anything to do at 2am.
It asks something of you in return: consistent attendance, practising skills between sessions, and a willingness to keep going through the stretch where things feel harder before they feel easier. Clients who get the most from DBT are not the ones who arrive most motivated — they are the ones who keep showing up.
DBT or CBT — Which Is Right for You?
Both are evidence-based and we offer both. CBT concentrates on identifying and reshaping unhelpful thought patterns, and is often the more efficient route for a focused problem such as a phobia, insomnia, or a specific anxiety. DBT keeps that change-focused work but adds acceptance, crisis survival, and relationship skills, which matters when the difficulty is the intensity of emotion itself rather than a single distorted belief.
Our guide to DBT versus CBT compares them in more depth, and you can meet the clinicians who deliver both.
Frequently Asked Questions About DBT Therapy in Denver
How long does DBT therapy take?
DBT is a commitment, and we would rather be honest about that up front. Our adult skills group runs roughly six months to a year, and the teen group runs 24 weeks — long enough to work through the full set of skills and practise them in real life. Many clients continue individual therapy alongside group and taper as the skills become second nature.
What is the difference between DBT and CBT?
CBT focuses on identifying and changing unhelpful thought patterns. DBT keeps that change-focused work but adds acceptance, distress tolerance and relationship skills, which makes it a better fit when emotions run very intense or feel uncontrollable. We offer both, and we will help you work out which suits you during your free consultation. Our guide to DBT versus CBT walks through the differences in more detail.
Do I have to join a skills group, or can I do individual DBT only?
Comprehensive DBT pairs individual therapy with a skills group, because the group is where the skills are actually taught and practised. That said, the right starting point depends on what you are dealing with and what your schedule allows. We will talk it through with you rather than pushing you into a format that will not stick.
Do you accept insurance for DBT sessions in Denver?
Mountainside Behavioral Health is an out-of-network provider. We do not bill insurance directly, but we provide superbills — detailed receipts you can submit to your insurer for potential reimbursement. Many clients with out-of-network benefits recover a meaningful portion of their session costs. Individual sessions are $175–$200, and we are happy to walk through the process during your free consultation.
Is DBT appropriate for teenagers?
Yes. We run a dedicated teen DBT skills group for ages 12 to 18 on Monday evenings, structured over 24 weeks. Adolescent DBT covers the same core skills in age-appropriate language and gives teens a place to practise them with peers facing similar struggles.
Can DBT help with trauma and PTSD?
It can. Our clinicians are trained in DBT-Prolonged Exposure (DBT-PE), which combines DBT with trauma-focused treatment. Skills come first, so you have reliable ways to manage distress before any trauma processing begins. You can read more on our trauma-informed treatment and PTSD treatment pages.
Start Your Healing Today
Schedule a free consultation by entering your details below. We will reach out to schedule a time.
“DBT gave me the tools to take back control of my life. The team at Mountainside truly cares.”
Client, Denver
Ready to take the first step?
Healing starts with one conversation. Fill out the form above to connect with our compassionate team today.