DEAR MAN Worksheet (Free PDF)

DEAR MAN is the DBT skill for making a request or saying no in a way the other person can actually hear: Describe, Express, Assert, Reinforce, stay Mindful, Appear confident, Negotiate. It comes from Marsha Linehan’s interpersonal effectiveness module in dialectical behavior therapy. Below you’ll find a worked example and a free printable worksheet.

What Is the DEAR MAN Skill?

DEAR MAN is the core interpersonal effectiveness skill in dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), taught whenever the goal of a conversation is an objective: a request granted, a boundary held, a no that sticks. Marsha Linehan published it in the original DBT skills manual in 1993 and expanded it in the second edition (Linehan, 2015).

DBT treats asking and refusing as skills, not personality traits, and skills fall apart under strong emotion. The acronym exists for exactly that moment: a client flooded with anxiety mid-conversation can still run seven letters. That framing has support beyond the classroom. In DBT treatment research, clients’ use of the skills has been linked to better outcomes, including improvements in anger and depression (Neacsiu, Rizvi, & Linehan, 2010).

What Does Each Letter of DEAR MAN Stand For?

The first four letters script the content: Describe the facts, Express how you feel, Assert the ask, Reinforce it with the payoff. The last three govern delivery: stay Mindful of the goal, Appear confident, and Negotiate when you hit a wall. Clients remember it best as two halves. DEAR is what you say. MAN is how you say it.

Two letters get fumbled more than the rest. Describe fails when a judgment sneaks in (“you never take the bills seriously” is a verdict, not a description, and it starts a different conversation). Mindful fails when the other person tosses out bait, an old grievance, a jab, a subject change, and the client takes it. The fix for both is the same: come back to the facts and the ask.

A Worked Example: One Ask, Start to Finish

Here is the skill run as an actual dialogue. Jordan is a fictional, composite client, 29, who shares an apartment with a roommate, Sam. The utilities account is in Jordan’s name, and Sam has paid late three months running.

Describe. “Sam, the last three utility bills got paid after the due date, and we got a $25 late fee last month.” Express. “I get anxious when the bill sits there unpaid, because the account is in my name.” Assert. “I’d like you to send me your half by the first of each month.” Reinforce. “If it lands on the first, I can put the whole thing on autopay and neither of us thinks about it again.” Sam: “You’re so uptight about money.” Stay Mindful. “Maybe so. I’d still like your half by the first.” Appear confident. Jordan keeps an even tone and eye contact, and doesn’t apologize for asking. Sam: “My paycheck doesn’t clear until the third.” Negotiate. “Okay. Does the fifth work? I’ll move the autopay to the sixth.”

Notice what Jordan didn’t do. No history-dredging, no counter-jab after “uptight,” no retreat into “sorry, forget it.” The single calm repetition is the Mindful step doing its work, and the Negotiate step ends the conversation with a workable plan instead of a winner. The same letters run in reverse for refusals: describe the request, express the conflict, assert the no, reinforce why the no is good for the relationship too.

When Do You Use DEAR MAN vs GIVE vs FAST?

Pick the skill by what the conversation most needs to protect. DEAR MAN protects the objective, GIVE protects the relationship, and FAST protects your self-respect (Linehan, 2015). Most hard conversations carry all three priorities at once. The skills stack, and the priority the client ranks first decides which one leads.

In plain terms: GIVE tempers the ask so the other person doesn’t leave the conversation bruised. Drop the threats and the eye-rolls, listen without rehearsing your rebuttal, and say the true thing about their side out loud. FAST is the counterweight for chronic over-accommodators, the clients who apologize for having needs at all. It tells them not to trade their values for approval, and not to shade the truth to make the ask smaller.

How Do Therapists Teach and Assign DEAR MAN?

Most therapists introduce DEAR MAN in a DBT skills group or an individual session, then move quickly from explanation to rehearsal, because the skill lives or dies in the delivery. The usual arc: clarify the client’s priority, script one real situation on the worksheet, role-play the pushback, then send the conversation home as homework with a debrief scheduled.

1. Clarify the priority first. Objective, relationship, or self-respect: the answer decides whether DEAR MAN leads or GIVE does. Skipping this step produces technically perfect asks aimed at the wrong target.

2. Start low-stakes. The first rep is returning an item to a store or asking a coworker to swap a shift, not confronting a parent about childhood.

3. Script it on the worksheet. One line per letter, in the client’s own words. Borrowed therapist phrasing collapses under pressure; their own phrasing doesn’t.

4. Rehearse out loud and role-play the pushback. You play the other person. Deflect, guilt-trip, escalate a little, so the client practices the Mindful broken record somewhere safe.

5. Assign it with a when. “Sometime this week” becomes never. “Thursday after dinner” happens.

6. Debrief the attempt, not the outcome. A well-run DEAR MAN that gets refused is still a success rep, and saying so out loud is part of the teaching.

Document the skill work the way you’d document any intervention: record what you taught and what you assigned, and note how the client handled the role-play (“introduced DEAR MAN; client scripted and rehearsed a rent conversation, held topic through two deflections”). See our guide on how to write therapy progress notes for where that lands in the note. And when the block is a belief rather than a skill deficit (“if I say no, she’ll leave”), pair the rehearsal with a CBT thought record so the prediction gets tested on paper too.

Download the Printable DEAR MAN Worksheet

The printable is one page, free, and ungated. No email address required. It gives your client a situation line at the top, one short prompt for each of the seven letters, and a practice-script box at the bottom for writing the whole ask out in their own words. Print a stack; assign one worksheet per conversation the client keeps putting off.

Download the DEAR MAN worksheet (PDF) · Téléchargez la fiche en français (PDF). The French version, Fiche DEAR MAN, was written in French, not machine-translated.

This worksheet is an original teaching aid. The official client handouts live in Linehan’s DBT Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets (2015), which belongs on the shelf of anyone running a full DBT program. A client who fills every box but freezes in the moment doesn’t need another worksheet; they need more role-play.

Klarify writes your session notes while you teach the skills. Klarify, a Canadian-built AI assistant for therapists in the US and Canada, drafts your progress notes from the session in 20+ built-in formats, and custom templates let you build a DBT skills-training note that captures the skill taught and the homework assigned. You stay with the client instead of the keyboard. Start with Klarify free.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does DEAR MAN stand for in DBT?

DEAR MAN stands for Describe, Express, Assert, Reinforce, stay Mindful, Appear confident, and Negotiate. The first four steps script what you say when you make a request or refuse one; the last three govern how you deliver it. It is the core skill of the interpersonal effectiveness module in dialectical behavior therapy.

What is an example of DEAR MAN?

Asking a roommate to pay their share of a bill on time: ‘The last three utility bills were paid after the due date (Describe). I get anxious when the bill sits unpaid, because the account is in my name (Express). I’d like your half by the first of the month (Assert). Then neither of us pays another late fee (Reinforce).’ The remaining letters shape delivery: stay on topic if they deflect, keep a steady tone, and offer a compromise such as a different date if you hit a wall.

What is the difference between DEAR MAN, GIVE, and FAST?

Each skill protects a different priority. DEAR MAN protects the objective: getting a request granted or holding a no. GIVE (be Gentle, act Interested, Validate, use an Easy manner) protects the relationship, and FAST (be Fair, no unnecessary Apologies, Stick to your values, be Truthful) protects your self-respect. Hard conversations often need more than one, weighted by which outcome matters most.

Who created the DEAR MAN skill?

Marsha Linehan, the psychologist who developed dialectical behavior therapy. DEAR MAN appears in her original DBT skills training manual (1993) and, in its current form, in the DBT Skills Training Manual, second edition (Guilford Press, 2015). It anchors the interpersonal effectiveness module, one of the four DBT skills modules.

What if DEAR MAN doesn’t work?

DEAR MAN raises the odds of a request landing; it does not control other people. If a well-delivered ask still gets refused, check the size of the ask against the relationship, consider whether the other person is actually able to give what you asked for, and decide whether to negotiate, drop it, or accept the no. A skillfully run conversation that ends in a no is still a successful practice rep.

Can you use DEAR MAN outside of DBT?

Yes. DEAR MAN is an assertiveness script at heart, and therapists teach it to clients who are not in full DBT programs, including in CBT-leaning practices and general skills groups. Nothing about the steps requires the rest of the DBT package, though it was designed and studied inside it.

Sources

• Linehan, M. M. (1993). Skills Training Manual for Treating Borderline Personality Disorder. Guilford Press.

• Linehan, M. M. (2015). DBT Skills Training Manual (2nd ed.). Guilford Press. Publisher page.

• Linehan, M. M. (2015). DBT Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets (2nd ed.). Guilford Press. Publisher page.

• Neacsiu, A. D., Rizvi, S. L., & Linehan, M. M. (2010). Dialectical behavior therapy skills use as a mediator and outcome of treatment for borderline personality disorder. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 48(9), 832-839. doi:10.1016/j.brat.2010.05.017.