DBT-Informed Skills in Minnesota
NorthStar Regional teaches DBT-informed skills in Minnesota as a toolkit for the moments that break recoveries. Skills drawn from dialectical behavior therapy (mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness) are taught in group and practiced one-on-one. The idea is simple: the problem is rarely feeling too much, but never having learned skills for feelings that size. These skills run through our residential and outpatient programs and in individual sessions at our Shakopee clinic. We accept Medical Assistance (Medicaid) and most major insurers, and if a substance was your only coping skill, better ones start here.
DBT at a glance
Learn the toolkit
The four skill families taught in a structured group rhythm, with practice built in.
Apply it to your life
One-on-one sessions target where your specific weeks break down, and rehearse the skill that would have held.
Diary cards and reps
Tracking urges, emotions, and the skills you used. Patterns become clear, and progress is something you can see, not just feel.
Inpatient Rehab and Residential Treatment
DBT-informed skills with residential structure around them. New skills can be practiced safely.
Licensed Treatment Programs
Founded 2015
Addiction and mental health care in one system
Multiple Campuses
Across the Twin Cities metro
MN Department of Health: Licensed
MN Department of Human Services: Licensed
Understanding the therapy
What DBT Teaches
DBT starts from a kind and useful idea: the problem isn’t that you feel too much. It is that nobody ever taught you the skills for feelings that size. So DBT teaches them, step by step. Mindfulness: noticing feelings early. Distress tolerance: getting through intense moments without making them worse. Emotion regulation: keeping feelings from getting so strong. Interpersonal effectiveness: asking, saying no, and making up without burning the bridge.
The “dialectical” part is the mindset: you are doing the best you can, and you need to do better, and both are true at once. For people whose substance use was the only coping skill they ever had, DBT gives them healthier ways to cope.
Is this right for you?
Signs You're Ready for DBT
DBT was built for feelings that arrive at flood strength. If emotion is the thing that keeps breaking your progress, these will sound familiar.
Feelings Hit Hard And Fast
For some people, emotions spike fast, and by the time they notice, they’re overwhelmed.
You’ve Lost Things You Didn’t Mean To Lose
Jobs quit in a rage, relationships ended in an evening, texts you wish you could take back. The feeling passes, but the damage stays.
Relationships Are All Or Nothing
Too close or gone, idealized or written off, with very little in between. The people you need most get the worst of it.
Using Is The Only Way You Know How To Cope
The substance isn’t recreation. It is the one coping skill you were ever taught for feelings that size. DBT exists to give you better ones.
Urges Toward Self-Harm Show Up
When pain peaks, hurting yourself starts to look like a way out. That is exactly the moment DBT-informed skills were designed for, and a reason to call today.
"Calm Down" Has Never Worked Once
Willpower and good advice do not work when emotions are at full intensity. You don’t need more determination. You need skills that work in those moments.
If even a few of these sound like you, that is reason enough to call. You don’t need to be certain, and you don’t need a diagnosis. A comprehensive assessment will sort out where this fits in your care. Reading this for someone you love? Start with our guide for parents or our guide for spouses and partners.
How It Helps
DBT for Addiction and Mental Health
DBT is key in dual diagnosis care. Intense emotion plus substance use is the mix that most often defeats treatment. It is the mix DBT was all but built for. At NorthStar Regional, the skills are part of the same plan as the addiction and mental health work, not separate from it.
For Addiction
Every substance we treat is explained on its own page, from the first assessment through sober living.
For Mental Health
At designated NorthStar Regional programs, these conditions are treated together with addiction as co-occurring care, in one plan. Standalone mental health treatment, no substance use diagnosis needed, is available through our outpatient clinic in Shakopee.
What to expect
How DBT Runs at NorthStar Regional
Group teaches the skills. Individual work makes them yours.
Learn The Four DBT Skills
The four skill families taught in a structured group rhythm, with practice built in.
Apply It to Your Life
One-on-one sessions target where your specific weeks break down, and rehearse the skill that would have held.
Daily Diary Cards
Tracking urges, emotions, and the skills you used. Patterns become clear, and progress is something you can see, not just feel.
Where we offer DBT
DBT at Every Level of Care
DBT is built into the programs you’re already in.
Residential
Inpatient Rehab and Residential Treatment
DBT-informed skills with residential structure around them. New skills can be practiced safely.
Outpatient
Intensive Outpatient and Virtual IOP
Skills group rhythm that fits around work and family.
Standalone
Outpatient Mental Health
You learn DBT-informed skills with the daily structure of residential care around you. That gives you a safe place to practice them.
Treatment Options
Explore Our Addiction and Mental Health Therapies
Recovery rarely rests on one method. Below are the addiction and mental health therapies and services at NorthStar Regional. Each has its own page. Your comprehensive assessment, the full evaluation that sets your plan, decides which mix of therapies your plan starts with.
The standalone services
Who's behind the work
About NorthStar Regional
NorthStar Regional is Minnesota’s treatment system built around access: alcohol and drug treatment centers and mental health care across multiple Twin Cities metro locations. Founded in 2015, we provide one connected continuum: detox (withdrawal management), residential, outpatient, mental health, and a sober housing pathway. Separate men’s and women’s campuses, co-occurring care at designated programs, and no faith requirement set us apart. We accept Medical Assistance (Medicaid) and most major insurers, and if you are uninsured, our admissions team helps you through enrollment. A person can walk in with nothing and leave with everything they need to build a life.
Paying for Care
Insurance and Payment Options
Our team helps review your benefits and handles the paperwork with you. If you have no insurance, we help walk you through enrolling for benefits. County case managers, probation officers, hospitals, and crisis teams send clients to us because, in their words, we just get it done.
Insurance and State Funding
Commercial plans, Medical Assistance (Medicaid), county placements, and private pay. We verify benefits and handle the paperwork with you.
We Are Here to Help
We help review your benefits, find your right starting point, and schedule you for the same day or the next whenever possible. Then we pick you up anywhere in the Twin Cities metro.
How Admission Works
What Happens From Your First Call to Your First Night
You did the hard part when you picked up the phone. Here is exactly what happens next, so nothing about day one is a mystery.
You Call and a Real Person Answers
A real person answers, usually within seconds, and asks one short question: substance use, or mental health? There is no phone tree, and you don’t have to tell your life story. We ask only what we need and handle the rest.
We Help with the Details
Our team helps review your benefits, and a short screening covers withdrawal risk, medical needs, and mental health, so you land at the right level of care. Then we schedule you, same day or next day whenever possible.
We Pick You Up
You get reminder calls and texts before pickup. For residential, your admissions coordinator and your driver also call you together, so you know who’s coming, what car to look for, and when to expect them. Many of our drivers are in long-term recovery themselves, and yours will help with your bags.
A Real Person Meets You When You Arrive
Your driver walks you inside and introduces you by name to the team member waiting for you. Your intake team completes your application with you. If you’re hungry, there’s a meal waiting. From there, treatment starts, and we help take care of the logistics along the way.
“The client has done the hard work by picking up the phone. We will carry them the rest of the way.”
Sarah Roy, Executive Vice President
Reviews from Google
Why Clients Choose NorthStar Regional
Don’t just take our word for it. Here is what alumni say about their time in treatment.
Keep reading
Related Articles and Resources
Resources
Before You Call
How admissions works, guides for families, and the forms you can complete early. More resources are linked throughout the site, or contact admissions and we’ll send anything by email.
Questions we hear every day
Common Questions About DBT
What is DBT?
DBT stands for dialectical behavior therapy. It is a skills-based therapy, built for people whose emotions are strong enough to wreck their whole week. Our DBT-informed skills work draws on its four sets of skills. Those are mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness, and you practice them until they hold up under real pressure.
What does 'dialectical' mean?
Two true things at once: you are doing the best you can, and you need to do better. DBT holds both without letting either become an excuse, which is exactly the mindset recovery requires.
Is there DBT residential treatment at NorthStar Regional?
DBT-informed skills run inside our residential programs, not in a separate DBT-only building. You get the residential structure and the DBT-informed toolkit together. You also get the substance use and mental health care the skills are there to serve.
How does DBT help with addiction?
Most relapses start with an emotion the person could not tolerate. Distress tolerance is the skill of getting through an intense emotion without using. Emotion regulation is the skill of having less intense emotions in the first place. DBT teaches both, which makes it a natural fit for recovery.
What conditions does DBT help?
It was built for strong emotions that are hard to control. It has strong evidence for reducing self-harm and for borderline personality disorder. It is also widely used for trauma, depression, anxiety, and substance use.
DBT vs. CBT: what's the difference?
CBT changes the thought patterns. DBT builds the skills to get through the feelings while those patterns change. Most NorthStar Regional clients get both, because most weeks need both.
Do you run DBT-informed skills groups?
Yes, DBT-informed skills are taught in group and practiced in individual work across our levels of care.
Will insurance cover DBT?
Yes. DBT is covered as part of treatment through Medicaid (Medical Assistance) and most major insurers. Our team helps review your benefits.
Admissions
Make the First Call and We'll Take It from There
Confidential, no obligation, and answered by someone who knows what you’re facing and cares to listen.