About & safety
Steady Skills teaches Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) skills in plain language, adapted for neurodivergent teens and their parents. Reading and practicing here is something you can do independently, alongside — never instead of — professional support.
What this is
- • A self-paced introduction to five DBT skill areas
- • Written for teens and parents to learn side by side
- • Adapted for ADHD, autism, and other neurodivergent minds
- • Practice ideas you can try in a few minutes a day
- • Progress saved only on your own device
What this is not
- • Not therapy, counselling, or medical advice
- • Not an AI therapist — no chatbot here will counsel you
- • Not a crisis or emergency service
- • Not a replacement for a DBT group or trained therapist
- • Not a place to share personal information — there's no account or messaging
If you need help right now
If you or someone else is in danger, contact your local emergency number immediately. If you're in emotional distress or crisis:
- • US: Call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline), or text HOME to 741741 (Crisis Text Line)
- • UK & Ireland: Call Samaritans on 116 123
- • Elsewhere: search for your country's crisis line, or speak to a trusted adult, doctor, or therapist
Reaching out for real help is itself a DBT skill in action. These pages will still be here afterwards.
Where this comes from
We cross-checked the five areas and named skills against the sources below. The structure is aligned with published DBT curricula, while the explanations, examples, lessons and practice cards are original plain-language adaptations. They have not been clinically reviewed.
- • Linehan, M. M. (2015), DBT Skills Training Manual and DBT Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets (2nd ed.), Guilford Press. This is the primary reference for Mindfulness, Distress Tolerance, Emotion Regulation and Interpersonal Effectiveness, including STOP, TIPP, ACCEPTS, PLEASE, DEAR MAN, GIVE and FAST.
- • Rathus, J. H. & Miller, A. L. (2015). DBT Skills Manual for Adolescents. Guilford Press. This adolescent and caregiver curriculum teaches the same five areas and is the primary reference for Walking the Middle Path, including validation and dialectical thinking.
- • For the neurodivergent framing, we checked research on adapting DBT for autistic people and a systematic review of alexithymia in autism. The evidence is still developing and is stronger for autistic adults than for neurodivergent teenagers generally.
- • Cold-water TIPP guidance follows the original manual's medical cautions. The app uses cool rather than painfully cold water and advises medical guidance for relevant health conditions or medicines.
This review found the five-area structure aligned overall. Some material is deliberately simplified or omitted for a short introduction. Steady Skills is not affiliated with or endorsed by the authors or publishers above.