Dialectical Behavior Therapy for Couples & Families
Skills-based approach for high-conflict relationships from the director of Stanford’s Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) Couples and Family Program.
What is DBT for Couples & Families?
Transform Conflict Through Skills and Understanding
DBT for Couples and Families (DBT-C and DBT-F) is a specialized adaptation of Dialectical Behavior Therapy designed for high-conflict relationship systems. Whether you’re a Couples stuck in chronic arguing, a family with intense emotional reactivity and escalated conflicts, or partners navigating trauma’s impact on your relationship, DBT offers practical skills and a framework for change. At Summit Psychotherapy Center, Dr. Jasmine Dobbs-Marsh brings her extensive experience treating Couples and families as the Director of Stanford University’s DBT Couples and Family Program and program developer or DBT Couples & Family Services at The Camden Center, San Francisco. This specialized treatment teaches Couples and families the same powerful skills used in individual DBT: mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness with adaptations and additions to facilitate mutual understanding and collaboration within relationship contexts. It’s not traditional Couples “talk therapy”. It’s a collaborative, skills-based, structured approach that helps you build the tools to understand and change unhealthy patterns so that you can build the relationship you want.
How DBT for Couples & Families Works
Skills-Based Relationship Transformation
Understanding the System
DBT-C/F views relationships as systems where each person’s behavior affects the other. We take a no-shame, no-blame approach, working to understand the multiple causes of problematic conflict cycles.
Managing Your Own Emotions Emotion Self-Management
Each person is in charge of their own emotions and reactions. Before you can manage conflict together, each person needs skills to manage their own emotions. You’ll learn to recognize emotional triggers, regulate intensity, and respond rather than react so that you can approach challenges together more effectively.
Practicing Distress Tolerance
All relationships have conflict and moments of distress . DBT teaches skills to tolerate difficult emotions and situations without saying or doing things that damage the relationship.
Learning Dialectical Validation
Every relationship is a meeting of two or more sets of experiences and emotions. Mutual understanding and connection requires the ability to hold multiple truths simultaneously – what makes sense about their perspective and what makes sense about yours; that you love someone and that you’re frustrated with them. Validation is the number one skill for reducing conflict and improving connection – shift together from “me vs. you” toward “us vs. a problem”.
Keeping the Relationship in Mind
Learning to share so the other person can understand, asking for what you want, saying no with love, and navigate conflict skillfully—even when the emotional stakes are high Keeping the Relationship in Mind. Being present during difficult conversations, observing without judgment, creating space between emotional reactions and behavioral responses, and learning how to hold the other person and your long-term goals for the relationship in mind even in the toughest moments.
Who Can Benefit?
Is DBT for Couples & Families Right for You?
This approach may be particularly helpful if:
Conflict escalates quickly and frequently
One or more partners say and do things during arguments they later regret
One or both partners have overwhelming emotions
Communication breaks down during important conversations
There’s a history of trauma affecting the relationship
Traditional Couples therapy hasn’t worked
Your relationship feels chronically unstable or volatile and you want to learn a new way of connecting
Parent-child conflict involving emotional reactivity and impulsive behaviors
Parent-child conflict involves intense emotional reactivity
You struggle to understand and validate each other’s emotions and perspectives
You want an active, change-based, solution-focused intervention
All parties are willing to learn new skills and work to change damaging patterns
*Note – at present, Summit Psychotherapy Center serves Couples and families in which all participating members are at least 15-years-old.
DBT Skills for Relationships
Building Blocks for Healthy Relationships
Couples and families learn DBT skills adapted for relationship contexts:
Observing the Transaction
Learn to identify problem patterns and catch them before you get stuck
Deescalation Training
Develop strategies to pause interactions and bring the heat down
Emotion Self-Management
Learn what sets you off so you can be skillful and intentional even when strong emotions arise
Accurate Expression
Express your feelings, thoughts, preferences, and wants so the other person can understand
Validation
Find the core truth in the other person’s experience so you can deescalate and build mutual understanding
Relationship Mindfulness
Learn to the hold relationship in mind even when you’re in conflict – remember you care about them and they care about you
Collaborative Problem Solving
Practice shifting out of a me vs. you mentality so you can find meaningful win-win solutions to the problems you face together
Relationship Worth Having
Create a shared vision of the relationship you want and chart a course to build that relationship together.
DBT-C vs. Traditional Couples Therapy
A Different Approach to Relationship Therapy
Skills-Based vs. Insight-Based
Traditional Couples therapy often focuses on talking and listening with the goal of learning more about each other. DBT-C takes an active scientific approach via observation of problem dynamics, concrete skills development to create new interactions, repeated experiential practice, and collaborative measurement of outcomes.
Emotion Regulation Focus
DBT-C explicitly addresses emotion dysregulation that drives conflict— helping Couples learn how to interrupt unhelpful reactions and communicate about core underlying emotions in ways that facilitate understanding and connection patterns.
Validation and Change
DBT balances validation (each person’s experience makes sense) with active change (harmful or unhelpful behaviors and patterns are amenable to intentional change).
Activating Change for High-Conflict, Stuck Relationships
DBT-C was specifically designed and developed for relationships with recurrent, escalated conflict but has been applied to support Couples navigating a range of entrenched relationship patterns.
Individual Skills + Relationship Application
Each person builds their own skills and capacities and the Couples then applies skills in tandem to create new, health patterns and improve relationship interactions and connection.
Why Choose Summit for DBT Couples & Family Therapy?
Director of Stanford’s DBT Couples and Family Program
Summit Psychotherapy Center offers unparalleled expertise in DBT for Couples and Families. Dr. Jasmine Dobbs-Marsh directs Stanford University’s DBT Couples and Family Program and led the development of DBT Couples and Family Programming at The Camden Center San Francisco and Los Angeles between 2020 and 2025. She has extensive experience treating high-conflict Couples and families, is sought out by clinicians and institutions for training in and consultation in DBT-C/F, and has experience leading teams of providers serving high-acuity family systems. Our team understands that high-conflict relationships require more than traditional Couples therapy—they require skills, validation, and a framework for understanding what drives destructive patterns. We provide hope even for relationships that have tried everything else.
Ready to Transform Your Relationship?
DBT for Couples and Families can help you move from chronic conflict to skillful communication and connection. Our specialized team of providers are here to guide you.