DBT Worksheets: Starter Pack

DBT worksheets are one of the more underrated parts of the treatment. People sometimes roll their eyes at the idea of filling out a form to track emotions. But worksheets are one of the main ways DBT actually changes behavior — they slow down the moment, give structure to something that was chaos, and produce a real record you and your therapist can look at together.

This post walks through the worksheets clinicians use most often, what each one is actually for, and how to get the most out of them. It’s written for people new to DBT and people who have been doing it a while but want to sharpen the tools.

Where DBT Worksheets Come From

The canonical source is Dr. Marsha Linehan’s DBT Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets, Second Edition (Guilford Press, 2015). This is the book your therapist has on their shelf; it’s the one used in every DBT-Linehan Board Certified program; it’s the one with the actual, vetted worksheets.

Almost everything else you’ll find online is derivative. Some derivatives are good — they preserve the structure and just update the look. Others are not — they simplify the skills past the point of being useful, or combine skills in ways that actually confuse the work.

When you’re in a comprehensive DBT program, you’ll work from the Linehan materials. When you’re self-studying or between therapies, you still benefit from knowing which worksheets are the high-leverage ones.

The Diary Card — The Most Important One

What it is: A small weekly log tracking your urges, emotions, behaviors, and skills used. Filled out daily, reviewed at the start of each individual therapy session.

What it does: Turns DBT from an abstract conversation into a structured conversation about your specific week. You and your therapist use the diary card to decide what to work on each session — following DBT’s target hierarchy (life-threatening behaviors first, therapy-interfering behaviors next, quality-of-life behaviors third).

What it tracks (typical columns):

• Date
• Urges to self-harm, use substances, or act out (rated 0-5)
• Actions taken (yes/no for each tracked behavior)
• Emotions experienced (typically 0-5 intensity for sadness, anger, fear, shame, joy)
• Skills used that day (coded by number)

Tips for doing it well:

• Fill it out the same time every day — most people find evenings work best. Two days of skipping makes the whole week hard to reconstruct.
• Be honest about the urges column. Your therapist can’t help with what you hide. “I had a strong urge to drink but didn’t” is more useful than leaving it blank.
• If you skip a day, don’t scrap the whole week. Mark it skipped and continue the next day.

What it’s not: a graded school assignment. It’s a tool. Some therapists are very structured about review; some are more flexible. Ask your therapist what they want on it.

Chain Analysis — For When Something Went Wrong

What it is: A detailed written walk-through of a specific problem behavior, from the vulnerabilities that set it up through the trigger, the links leading to the behavior, the behavior itself, and the consequences.

What it does: Reveals the moments in the chain where a different choice could have been made. Not as self-punishment — as reconnaissance. The next time the chain starts, you now know where to intervene.

Basic structure:

• Vulnerability factors (what made you susceptible before anything happened — lack of sleep, skipped meals, conflict earlier in the day)
• Prompting event (the specific thing that triggered the chain)
• Links (thoughts, emotions, physical sensations, urges, behaviors — in order)
• Problem behavior (what you actually did)
• Consequences (short-term and long-term, positive and negative)
• Alternate links (what could you have thought or done differently at each point?)
• Repair plan (what needs to be fixed, if anything)
• Prevention plan (how to reduce vulnerability going forward)

Tips for doing it well:

• Do it as soon as possible after the behavior, while memory is fresh.
• Write more than you think you should. Quick bullet-points don’t do the work.
• Be specific on alternate links. “I should have used skills” is not an alternate link. “When I noticed the urge at 9 PM I could have called my coach, taken a shower, or used TIPP with ice water” is.
• Bring it to your next individual session. Chain analyses are meant to be reviewed with a therapist.

DEAR MAN Worksheet

What it is: A planning worksheet for having a difficult conversation — asking for something or saying no — using the DEAR MAN skill from interpersonal effectiveness.

What it does: Forces you to think through your request in advance rather than trying to improvise under emotional pressure. Particularly useful when you know a conversation is coming and you want it to go well.

Structure: You write out what you’ll say for each letter:

• Describe the facts (no interpretation, no judgment)
• Express your feelings (“I” statements)
• Assert your specific ask (concrete and doable)
• Reinforce — what’s in it for them
• Mindful — how you’ll stay on track if they try to derail
• Appear confident — body language and tone cues
• Negotiate — what middle ground you’re willing to accept

Tips: See our full DEAR MAN post for examples and a dialogue. The worksheet is meant to prepare you, not to be read aloud.

Pros and Cons Worksheet

What it is: A four-quadrant analysis of acting on a crisis urge vs. not acting on it.

What it does: Interrupts the urgency of a destructive urge by forcing you to think about short-term and long-term consequences before you act.

Structure:

• Short-term pros of acting on urge
• Short-term cons of acting on urge
• Short-term pros of not acting on urge
• Short-term cons of not acting on urge
• Long-term pros and cons of each

Tips:

• Fill it out when you’re not in crisis and can think clearly. Keep it somewhere accessible.
• Be honest about the pros of acting on the urge. Self-destructive behaviors feel good in the short term for real reasons; pretending otherwise won’t help. The point is to see them in full context.
• Re-read it when the urge comes. Not to lecture yourself — to remind yourself.

Check the Facts Worksheet

What it is: A worksheet for testing whether an emotion fits the facts of a situation, and whether the intensity is proportional.

What it does: Addresses the way emotion regulation often gets derailed by interpretations that aren’t accurate. You list the facts, your interpretations, and the emotion — and then evaluate whether your interpretation is the most likely one given the evidence.

Structure:

• Describe the situation (facts only)
• What emotion am I feeling? How intense?
• What am I interpreting the situation to mean?
• Does the evidence support this interpretation? What else could it mean?
• Does the emotion fit the facts?
• If yes — what skill do I use? If no — what would a more accurate interpretation be?

Tips: See our full Check the Facts post for examples.

Emotion Regulation Skills Worksheets (ABC PLEASE)

What it is: Weekly/daily tracking of the skills that reduce emotional vulnerability — specifically:

• Accumulate positive experiences (short-term)
• Build mastery (long-term)
• Cope ahead (plan for hard situations)
• Physical illness (treat it)
• Low vulnerability to illness (balanced eating, sleep)
• Exercise
• Avoid mood-altering substances
• Sleep (balanced)
• Eat (balanced)

What it does: Prevents the “I don’t know why I’m such a mess today” problem by making the upstream variables visible. When you’re under-slept, under-fed, sedentary, and using substances, your emotional regulation is going to be worse. The worksheet makes the link concrete.

Where to Find Reliable Worksheets

The book itself — Linehan’s DBT Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets, 2nd ed. Best single purchase if you’re serious. About $60.

Psychology Tools (psychologytools.com) — subscription resource used by many clinicians. Clean, well-designed worksheets that track the Linehan model.

DBT Self-Help (dbtselfhelp.com) — free online summary of DBT skills with downloadable worksheets. Curated by the late Lisa Dietz, a longtime DBT advocate.

Your therapist — if you’re in DBT, your therapist has the real ones and will give you what you need. Asking is fine.

TherapistAid — okay for basic tracking worksheets, weaker for the canonical DBT skills. Useful for some general CBT tools alongside DBT.

Avoid: random social-media printables with no attribution, coloring-book versions of DBT skills, anything from a “life coach” without clinical credentials. Volume on Pinterest is not a quality signal.

A Word on Self-Study

DBT worksheets are most powerful when used with a clinician, for reasons that become obvious once you try to do chain analysis on yourself honestly. But self-study has its place, particularly if you’re between therapies or building basic literacy before your first intake.

If you’re self-studying:

• Get the Linehan book and work through it slowly. Don’t try to do every skill at once.
• Consider The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook by McKay, Wood, and Brantley — it’s a consumer-friendly adaptation that many clinicians recommend as a starting point.
• Pick one skill at a time. Practice for a week. Then move on.
• Recognize the limit: self-study is useful for skills knowledge and practice; it does not replace therapy for significant dysregulation, self-harm, or a BPD diagnosis.

See our DBT Workbook guide for more on self-study resources.

The Bottom Line

DBT worksheets are not busywork. They’re the mechanism by which abstract skills become real changes in your behavior — because they slow down the moment, make the invisible visible, and give you and your therapist something concrete to work from.

If you’re starting DBT at FRTC, you’ll get introduced to all of these in a structured sequence. If you’re self-studying, start with the diary card and one skill-specific worksheet at a time. If you’re a clinician reading this — you know the drill, and we hope this was a useful reference.

For the full DBT skills curriculum and program info, visit our DBT program page or contact us for a free consultation.

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Related Reading

• DBT Workbook: How to Choose and Use One Effectively
• DBT Diary Cards: What They Are, How to Use Them, and Why They Matter
• DEAR MAN DBT Skill: The Acronym for Getting What You Need
• Check the Facts: The DBT Emotion Regulation Skill
• ABC PLEASE: The DBT Skill for Reducing Emotional Vulnerability