Humber Dialectical Behaviour Therapy Leaflet

Published: 10 Sep 2026

Publication Date: October 2025

Review Date: October 2027

Humber Dialectical Behaviour Therapy

Providing comprehensive DBT across Hull and East Yorkshire.

What is Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT)?

DBT is a therapeutic approach recommended for people for whom reducing self-harm and suicidal behaviour is a priority. Alongside reducing such behaviour, DBT aims to help people work towards the goals they have for their life. Whilst supporting people to change, we aim to help people understand and validate their own emotions and experiences, rather than us simply asking people to do something different.

What does the DBT team do?

Training to teams Trustwide
Supervision and consultation to other teams
Direct treatment with the team
Support for family, friends, and other supporters through the Humber Family Connections Service

Because we are a small team, unfortunately we aren’t able to offer direct treatment to everyone who experiences self-harm and suicidal behaviour. Therefore, we use certain criteria to decide which referrals to accept. Even if you do not meet the criteria for direct treatment, we will be happy to support other people to offer you DBT-informed support.

What does direct treatment involve?

If the team accepts a referral for you for direct treatment:

One of our team will get in touch to arrange approximately 4 pre-treatment appointments for us to meet and agree together whether DBT is the right approach for you.
If it is, direct treatment initially involves attending a weekly skills training group to learn skills in mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, interpersonal effectiveness, and achieving balance in life.
You will also have individual sessions with a DBT Therapist, and telephone coaching between sessions to support you in implementing the skills you’ve learned in sessions to everyday life.
The therapists in the team also meet weekly at our consultation meeting to discuss our work to ensure we are working effectively.

What would I need to do if I had direct treatment?

We would expect you to show commitment to the treatment, which we usually assess by your attendance and engagement in the things we ask you to do as part of DBT.
We may change the things we expect from you where we think it will be helpful to you.
You would need to practice what you are learning at your sessions between sessions.
Individual treatment also involves completing a diary card every day recording how often harmful behaviours and skilful behaviours occur during your week.
After completing your first round of skills group, the consultation team meet to discuss whether DBT seems to being helpful for you; if not, we may consider discharging you from DBT, as we don’t want to keep doing something that isn’t helping you.
We assess whether DBT is helping in a number of ways, including whether you have been able to reduce or stop utilising self-harm or suicidal behaviour as a coping strategy.
If DBT seemed to be helping then we would offer you further sessions if you wanted them.

Where do the sessions take place?

DBT group sessions are held at 77 Beverley Road, Hull, HU3 1XR. This is based in Hull City Centre, within walking distance of the transport interchange.

Individual sessions also typically take place at 77 Beverley Road, Hull, HU3 1XR. Though these may be offered at any available base within the area with agreement between yourself and your allocated therapist, provided we have capacity to do so.

Please let us know as soon as possible if you think coming to 77 Beverley Road will be a problem for your individual sessions.

How can I find out more about DBT?

If you would like to speak to us, you can call us on 01482 689154 or email us on hnf-tr.humberdbt@nhs.net.

You can also speak to your care coordinator or other worker in mental health services about the service, and Mind produce a more detailed overview of DBT available at the following link: https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/drugs-and-treatments/talking-therapy-and-counselling/dialectical-behaviour-therapy-dbt/