DEAR MAN Worksheet: A Therapist Guide to the DBT Skill (Free PDF)

Authored by Dr. Hannah Lin, counselling psychologist trained in CBT, ACT, and IFS, with a decade of clinical practice in anxiety, trauma, and adolescent work.

The dear man dbt skill gives clients a structure for asking clearly, or saying no clearly, in a conversation that matters. It earns its place in the DBT skills curriculum because most clinically relevant relationship distress is not about the absence of feelings, but about the absence of a workable script for expressing them. A client who can name what they want, say it out loud, and stay focused while the other person reacts has more degrees of freedom than a client who escalates, withdraws, or rehearses the conversation alone for three weeks and then sends a text they regret.

The DEAR MAN worksheet is the planning artefact behind the skill. Clients fill it in before a difficult conversation so the structure is rehearsed rather than improvised. The worksheet is not the work; the work is the conversation itself. The worksheet earns its keep when the rehearsal in session and the planning at home make the live conversation more recognisable to the client when it happens, less like a freefall and more like a path they have already walked once on paper.

This guide covers when the dear man dbt skill fits clinically, the seven moves with concrete client-facing language, how to introduce it in session, common resistances, and a downloadable one-page worksheet for use in your own practice. It assumes you are a licensed therapist with formulation skills; the therapy worksheets cornerstone covers worksheet ethics in more depth.

Educational content for therapists, not clinical or legal advice. Skill selection sits inside formulation; what follows is a map, not a protocol.

What the dear man dbt skill is and when it fits

DEAR MAN is one of three DBT interpersonal-effectiveness skills Marsha Linehan developed in the DBT Skills Training Manual, alongside GIVE (for preserving the relationship) and FAST (for keeping self-respect). The acronym names seven moves a client uses to make a clear ask or a clear refusal in a conversation where the stakes are high enough to warrant planning.

The skill fits cleanly in a handful of clinical contexts. In BPD-track DBT it is foundational, because chronic interpersonal dysregulation often coexists with under-developed assertion and the client benefits from a structure they can hold onto when the relational stakes feel overwhelming. In CPTSD presentations where assertion has historically been punished, DEAR MAN gives the client a script that does not depend on a feeling of safety they may not yet have. In GAD with social-anxiety overlap, the structure reduces the cognitive load of holding a conversation goal while managing the worry loop. In adolescent peer-conflict work it gives teens a sequence to practise that does not require them to invent the words in the moment.

DEAR MAN is a poor fit during acute dysregulation, during freeze states, or when the client has not yet developed enough distress tolerance to stay in the conversation if the other person reacts badly. It is also a poor fit when the relationship itself is unsafe: planning a more articulate ask does not change the risk profile of asking. The clinical formulation comes first; the skill choice follows.

The seven moves of the dear man dbt skill

The acronym breaks into two halves. The first four letters (Describe, Express, Assert, Reinforce) are the structure of the ask itself. The last three (Mindful, Appear confident, Negotiate) describe the how of saying it. Each letter has its own clinical purpose and its own most-common failure mode.

D: Describe

Describe the situation in plain factual language. No interpretation, no story, no characterisation of the other person. “When you didn’t reply to my message for two days” rather than “When you ignored me.” The clinical purpose is to anchor the conversation in shared reality before introducing the parts that the other person might dispute. Clients who skip the Describe move usually arrive in the conversation already in the Express step and surprise the other person with a feeling that has no anchor.

Worked example: a client preparing to ask their partner to take over the school pickup on Thursdays. The Describe move sounds like: “On Thursdays I have a 6pm meeting, and school pickup is at 5:30.”

E: Express

Express your feelings and opinions about the situation, using I statements. The goal is to communicate the internal state and the assessment to the other person, not to label them. “I feel rushed and resentful when I leave the meeting early” rather than “You are inconsiderate.” The structure protects the conversation from collapsing into accusation. The most common client failure here is to skip the I statement and present feelings as facts about the other person.

Worked example, continued: “I feel anxious every Thursday afternoon trying to figure out how to make both work. I think we have not actually talked about who does which weekday pickup.”

A: Assert

Ask clearly for what you want, or say no clearly. The client needs to make the request explicit; they cannot rely on the other person to infer it from the Describe and Express moves. Many clients arrive at this step having implicitly assumed the other person already knows the ask. The Assert move is where the conversation becomes a conversation rather than a venting. Clear is the operative word. Hedged asks (“I was kind of wondering if maybe you could perhaps”) tend to invite hedged answers.

Worked example, continued: “I would like you to take over the Thursday pickup starting next week.”

R: Reinforce

Explain the positive consequences of the other person responding well. Reinforce is the move that is most often skipped, partly because it can feel transactional, and partly because clients do not always trust that the positive frame is sincere. The clinical work is to help the client locate a real positive consequence rather than a manufactured one. The goal is to make the path of agreement feel concrete to the other person, not to bribe them.

Worked example, continued: “It would mean I am not rushed and resentful on Thursdays, which would make our evenings easier on both of us.”

M: Mindful

Stay focused on the goal of the conversation. If the other person introduces a side topic, the client returns to the ask. If the other person makes a critical comment, the client does not pursue the criticism in that conversation. The broken-record technique, where the client calmly restates the ask after each tangent, is the most common operationalisation. The failure mode is to follow the side topic and arrive at the end of the conversation having not actually made the request.

A: Appear confident

Appear confident, with eye contact, voice tone, and posture that communicate that the ask is a real ask. The client does not have to feel confident; the move is about the external signal, not the internal state. The clinical work here is often to separate the felt sense of confidence (which the client does not have on tap) from the behavioural display (which they can rehearse). This separation matters because clients who wait to feel confident before asking tend to wait indefinitely.

N: Negotiate

Be willing to give to get. If the full ask is not available, the client offers an alternative or asks the other person what would work. The Negotiate move is what differentiates DEAR MAN from a script that breaks down the moment the other person says no. The client comes into the conversation with at least one acceptable fallback in mind so they are not improvising under pressure.

Worked example, continued: “If Thursday does not work, I am open to figuring out a different weekday I could pick up, and you could take a different one.”

How to introduce DEAR MAN in session

Most clients meet DEAR MAN twice before the skill earns a place in their working repertoire. The first meeting is psychoeducation: walking through the acronym, identifying which moves the client already does and which they skip, and naming the most common failure mode for each move. The second meeting is in-session rehearsal: picking a real upcoming conversation the client has on the calendar, working through the seven steps on paper, and then role-playing the ask with the therapist in the role of the other person. The rehearsal is the active ingredient. Clients who have only encountered DEAR MAN psychoeducationally rarely use it spontaneously.

A useful session script for introducing the skill: “There is a DBT skill called DEAR MAN that gives you a structure for difficult conversations. It is seven steps, but you do not have to memorise them today. We are going to walk through one upcoming conversation together, and you will leave with a written plan you can look at before the real one happens.” This framing keeps the cognitive load low and centres the skill in a real conversation the client is already worried about.

Homework usually looks like: “Between now and our next session, fill in the worksheet for one conversation you want to have. Pick one that matters but is not the biggest one in your life. We will look at the worksheet together next time and you can decide whether you actually want to have the conversation.” The conditional framing matters. Clients who feel obligated to have the conversation because they filled in the worksheet often go in unprepared; clients who get to decide after planning the conversation are more likely to use the skill on conversations they actually want to have.

Common resistances and how to navigate them. Some clients experience the structure as inauthentic. The framing that helps is that the structure is scaffolding while the skill is unfamiliar, the same way training wheels are scaffolding for a bicycle, and that it falls away as the moves become automatic. Some clients resist the Reinforce move as manipulative; the clinical work is to distinguish naming a real consequence from manufacturing one. Some clients use the worksheet to prepare a conversation they never actually have, which is its own pattern worth naming in session.

The dear man dbt worksheet

The downloadable PDF below is a one-page client worksheet with the seven steps laid out as labelled prompts and ruled lines. Clients fill it in before the conversation, ideally after at least one in-session rehearsal. The fields are:

• A one-line situation field at the top, naming the conversation the client is preparing for.
• A Describe field with three ruled lines for the factual description.
• An Express field with three lines for I statements about feelings and opinions.
• An Assert field with three lines for the explicit ask or refusal.
• A Reinforce field with three lines for the positive consequences of agreement.
• A Mindful field with two lines for the goal the client returns to if sidetracked.
• An Appear confident field with two lines for the body language and tone the client wants to use.
• A Negotiate field with two lines for at least one acceptable fallback.

A printed worksheet sometimes lands better than a digital one because the client carries it into the conversation as a physical object they can glance at if they lose their place. In session, I usually offer the printed version for clients new to the skill and a digital version for clients who have used DEAR MAN for several conversations already.

Download the DEAR MAN worksheet (PDF). Free printable, one page, designed for clinical use.

Modifications for special populations

The seven-step structure is the same across populations. The format, language, and pacing of the worksheet are not.

Pediatric and adolescent DEAR MAN. With younger clients, the formal language of the acronym lands less well than functional descriptions. Describe becomes “just the facts of what happened.” Express becomes “what you felt about it, using I words.” Assert becomes “say what you want, in a clear sentence.” Reinforce becomes “what good thing happens if they say yes.” The Mindful and Appear confident moves usually need more rehearsal with adolescents than with adults, because the social cost of appearing assertive is often higher in adolescent peer dynamics. Role-play with the therapist in the role of the friend, parent, or teacher tends to do more work than the worksheet itself; the written form is the rehearsal record, not the rehearsal.

Couples-format DEAR MAN. When both partners are in the room, the skill can be run as a dual-DEAR-MAN: each partner works through the seven steps for the same conflict, with the therapist coaching the pair to identify which steps each partner historically skips. The clinical insight is usually that one partner skips Describe and starts in Express, while the other skips Express and starts in Assert. Naming the asymmetry is often more useful than coaching either partner to do all seven moves immediately. Couples work that uses DEAR MAN sits adjacent to but not inside formal DBT, and the modality choice belongs in the case formulation.

Written DEAR MAN for high-arousal clients. For clients who freeze in face-to-face conflict, a written-DEAR-MAN variant, where the client sends the structured ask as a message rather than speaks it in person, can be a useful stepping stone. The structure is the same; the medium is lower arousal, which keeps the prefrontal cortex more available for goal-directed planning. The clinical work is to use written DEAR MAN as a bridge to spoken DEAR MAN, not as a permanent substitute, because some interpersonal goals require live conversation to land.

Pairing DEAR MAN with GIVE and FAST

DEAR MAN is one of three DBT interpersonal-effectiveness skills. The other two address what DEAR MAN does not. GIVE (Gentle, Interested, Validate, Easy manner) is about preserving the relationship while the ask is happening. FAST (Fair, Apologise less, Stick to values, Truthful) is about keeping self-respect through the conversation. The three skills are not alternatives; they are layers that run in parallel.

The clinical move is to help the client decide which priority dominates in a given conversation. Asking a long-term partner to share more of the parenting load is usually a DEAR MAN where GIVE matters a lot and FAST matters in the background. Saying no to a manager’s unreasonable request is usually a DEAR MAN where FAST matters a lot and GIVE matters in the background. Asking a friend for an apology after a betrayal might be a DEAR MAN where all three skills are running at near-equal weight. Naming the dominant priority helps the client choose the words: a DEAR-MAN-with-GIVE-leading sounds different from a DEAR-MAN-with-FAST-leading, even when the underlying ask is the same.

Behavioral Tech, Marsha Linehan’s training institute, publishes the canonical references for these skills and runs the clinician training that makes the three-skill integration second nature in practice. A daily tracking artefact like the DBT diary card surfaces when interpersonal skills got deployed and how the conversation went, which feeds back into next-week skills selection.

Sibling worksheets in this cluster

The DEAR MAN worksheet is one of several DBT and communication-skill artefacts that work as a system.

• DBT diary card template. The daily tracker that records skill use, including which interpersonal-effectiveness skills were deployed in which conversations.
• Coping skills worksheets. The distress-tolerance and emotion-regulation tools the client uses to stay in the window of tolerance during difficult conversations.
• Triggers worksheet. The surface-mapping tool that surfaces which interpersonal cues most reliably precede the conversations DEAR MAN is meant to address.

These worksheets cluster naturally in the therapy worksheets hub. DEAR MAN sits in the interpersonal-effectiveness module of the DBT curriculum, and the cluster as a whole covers the full sequence from cue identification to in-the-moment regulation to structured conversation.

For a wider view of how worksheet-based homework actually lands between sessions, the between-session therapy activities guide covers what drives completion and what does not.

How Emosapien handles DEAR MAN within the session

Emosapien’s Scribe Agent listens to the session as an active co-therapist. When the conversation surfaces a DEAR MAN rehearsal (psychoeducation on the acronym, in-session role-play, planning a specific upcoming conversation), the agent pre-populates a structured entry in the progress note’s Intervention and Plan sections: the target conversation, the seven-step plan, the role-play notes, and the homework for the week. The clinician reviews and signs.

The format works as a modality marker for DBT-adherent practice. Charts that explicitly document interpersonal-effectiveness skills training are easier for utilisation review to read as DBT-aligned, and the structure makes the modality visible rather than buried in narrative. See the AI clinical notes overview for how the Scribe Agent handles modality-aware documentation, or start free (10 sessions per month, no credit card) to see DBT intervention drafting in your own session workflow.