The DBT diary card
A minute a day. Emotions, urges, and the skills you actually reached for. It turns a week you can only half remember into something you and a therapist can look at together, and it shows you the thing that is easiest to miss from the inside: how often you had a strong urge and used a skill instead.
Rate each one for today, 0 is not at all and 5 is as strong as it gets. Fill it in as you go rather than from memory. It takes about a minute.
How I felt
Urges
Skills I used
With my children
Both together is not a bad day. It is the whole skill.
Your week
This stays on your device. Everything you enter is saved in this browser only. It is never sent to us, we cannot see it, and there is no account. Use the same browser each day, and print your card to take to an appointment.
You do not have to wait to start
Most people meet a diary card for the first time in a DBT programme, and most people wait a long time for one. You do not need permission to start keeping it. A few weeks of cards makes a first appointment dramatically more useful, because you arrive with a pattern rather than a summary.
The free pocket guide goes with this
Two printable pages of the most-used tools: what to do in the storm, the repair script for afterwards, grounding for flashbacks, and a boundary that does not explode. Made for the fridge door, not the bookshelf.
I'll send the free guide and the occasional new-book note, gently, never spammily. Unsubscribe any time.
Using the diary card
What is a DBT diary card?
It is the daily record used in dialectical behaviour therapy. You rate your emotions and any urges, and tick the skills you used that day. It is the thing a DBT therapist asks you to bring to a session, because it turns a week you half-remember into something the two of you can actually look at together.
Do I need to be in DBT to use one?
No. Plenty of people use a diary card while they are on a waiting list, or alongside a workbook, or simply to see their own patterns. It is a tool, not a prescription. It is not a substitute for therapy, and it does not replace one.
Why does it ask about urges?
Because tracking urges is what makes the card useful. Noticing an urge and recording it is not the same as acting on it, and seeing that you had a strong urge and used a skill instead is one of the most encouraging things a card can show you. If your urges are strong, please tell someone rather than only writing it down.
What do the four groups of skills mean?
They are the four modules of DBT. Mindfulness is noticing what is happening without judging it. Distress tolerance is getting through a crisis without making it worse. Emotion regulation is reducing how often the storms arrive. Interpersonal effectiveness is asking, refusing, and keeping your self-respect.
Is my data private?
Yes. Everything is stored in your own browser on your own device. It is never sent to us, we cannot see it, and there is no account to create. Print your card to keep a copy, or to take to an appointment.
Why is there a section about my children?
Because these books are written for parents, and because rupture and repair is the single most useful idea in them. Unrepaired rupture harms children. Repaired rupture does not, and it teaches them that love survives conflict. Tracking both is often the first time someone sees that they are repairing far more than they thought.
This card is information, not medical advice, and it does not diagnose or treat anything. If you are struggling right now, Samaritans are free on 116 123, any time, or text SHOUT to 85258. In the US, call or text 988. If your life is in immediate danger, call 999 or go to A&E.