DBT GIVE Skill: Printable Worksheet, Examples and Script

The DBT GIVE skill is how a client keeps a relationship in good shape during a hard conversation: be Gentle, act Interested, Validate, and use an Easy manner. Most pages stop at those four words. This one is built to be used. It starts with a printable GIVE worksheet written to your client, with space to plan each letter, and then gives you what the short explainers leave out: the six levels of validation in plain words, when GIVE should lead instead of DEAR MAN or FAST, worked examples with a couple, a teen and parent, and two coworkers, the mistakes clients make most, a role-play script for session, and how to note it.

About this worksheet. GIVE comes from Marsha Linehan's dialectical behavior therapy (DBT). Our explanations are based on her DBT Skills Training Manual, 2nd edition (Guilford Press, 2015), and on her account of validation in psychotherapy (Linehan, 1997). Her handouts and worksheets are copyrighted, and we don't reproduce them. Everything on this page, the worksheet and the script included, is our own wording and layout.

Every client, couple, family and coworker in this article is invented. Any resemblance to a real person is a coincidence.

GIVE at a glance

GIVE belongs to the interpersonal effectiveness module of DBT, next to DEAR MAN, for getting what you ask for, and FAST, for keeping your self-respect. Our DEAR MAN guide covers that skill, the module and the research on DBT skills training, and our DBT skills list has every skill in one place. This page goes deep on GIVE alone.

How to print this page or save it as a PDF

GIVE worksheet

Keeping the relationship while you talk: the GIVE skill

Some conversations matter less for what you get out of them than for how the other person feels about you afterward: a talk with a partner, a parent, a close friend, or a coworker you'll sit next to for years. GIVE is four reminders for those talks. Use it when you're asking for something, saying no, working through a disagreement, making up after a fight, or simply listening to someone who's upset.

Plan it here first. A few honest words beat a perfect speech.

Step 1: The conversation

Step 2: What matters most this time?

Number these 1, 2 and 3.

If the relationship comes first, GIVE leads. If something else comes first, GIVE still helps, and your therapist can show you DEAR MAN or FAST to go with it.

Step 3: G, be Gentle

Gentle means no attacks, no threats and no put-downs, whether in words, in your tone or in your face. You can be gentle and still be firm.

For example: "I want to get this right. Can we pick it up after dinner?"

Step 4: I, act Interested

Interested means listening to understand, not to win. Let them finish. Ask about their side, then wait for the answer.

Step 5: V, Validate

Validating means showing that what they feel or think makes sense from where they stand. It doesn't mean you agree, and it doesn't mean you'll do what they want.

Six ways to validate, from simplest to strongest:

Now plan yours.

For example: "I can see why you're annoyed. You planned your day around me, and I changed things at the last minute."

Step 6: E, use an Easy manner

Easy manner means keeping the pressure low: a relaxed voice, a little warmth, maybe a little humor if it comes naturally. It doesn't mean pretending you're fine. If you're hurt, you can say so in a calm voice.

Step 7: Put it together

Step 8: Validate yourself too

Before you start, give yourself the same fairness you're giving them.

After the conversation

A good GIVE conversation doesn't always end with a hug. If you stayed gentle, listened and were fair to both of you, it counts.

Practice log

Start with easy moments: asking a friend about their day and really listening, or saying back what a coworker told you before you answer. Then try harder conversations.

Bring this sheet to your next session, including the times it didn't go well. Those tell your therapist the most.

When not to use this on your own

If you're afraid of this person, or they have hurt or threatened you, don't use this sheet alone. Being gentle and understanding toward someone who is harming you is not the goal, and your safety comes first. Talk it through with your therapist. In the US, the National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1-800-799-7233, or text START to 88788. If you might hurt yourself or someone else, call or text 988, or call 911.

End of the worksheet. The rest of this page is for therapists.

The four GIVE skills in depth, for therapists

Linehan frames relationship effectiveness with one question: how does the client want the other person to feel about them once the conversation is over? GIVE is the answer in behavior. Each letter below has what it means, what it doesn't, and what to coach.

G: be Gentle

Gentle rules out three things: attacks, threats and judgments. Attacks include the obvious (yelling, name-calling, anything physical) and the quiet ones clients often miss: sarcasm, eye-rolling, a sigh before answering, a smirk, a door closed a little too hard. Threats include ultimatums ("Do this or we're done") and guilt used as pressure. Judgments are verdicts on the person ("You're so selfish") and "should" statements about how they ought to feel.

What gentle isn't: quiet, passive or vague. A client can say a firm no gently, and can say they're angry in plain words, calmly, without acting it out. Gentle is about how the message arrives, not about watering it down. It also covers how a conversation ends: if the client needs to stop, they say so and leave calmly, instead of storming out mid-sentence.

Coach it: ask the client to list their own "tells", the two or three things they do when they're about to lose their temper with this particular person. Those go on the worksheet as things to leave out, and they're often what the other person remembers.

A threat to self-harm is not a skills problem. If a client tells you they've said something like "If you leave, I'll hurt myself" in a conflict, assess risk and update the safety plan before you coach the wording. The same applies when the client is on the receiving end of such a threat.

I: act Interested

Interested means listening to understand the other person's side, not to collect material for a rebuttal. In practice: let them finish, ask a question about their view, face them, put the phone away, and take a request to talk later seriously by agreeing on a time. Patience is part of it. The other person may need several minutes before they get to what actually bothers them.

What interested isn't: an interrogation. Five quick questions feel like a cross-examination. It also isn't a performance: nodding along while silently rehearsing a reply reads as not caring, and most people can tell.

Coach it: one question, then silence. Many clients ask a question and answer it themselves, or fill the pause. Have them practice asking and counting slowly to five before they speak again. On a video call, interested also means closing other windows and turning off notifications.

V: Validate, and the six levels of validation

Validating means communicating that the other person's feelings, thoughts or wants make sense, from their point of view and given the situation. DBT's rule of thumb is to validate the valid: find the part that makes sense and say so. Behavior can be out of line while the emotion behind it is understandable. A teen who throws a phone across the room isn't acting reasonably, but being furious about losing the phone may make complete sense.

What validation is not: agreeing, approving, praising, giving in, or saying the other person is right. A client can validate a parent's worry and still go to the concert. It's a very common misunderstanding of the skill, and it's covered under mistakes below.

Linehan first described validation as a therapist strategy in six levels, from simplest to most complete (Linehan, 1997). The skills manual teaches a version of them to clients, so they can validate other people and themselves. In our own words:

Validation can also be an action. If a partner says they've had no time to eat, making them a sandwich validates more than any sentence about hunger. If the problem is one the client can fix, fixing it is often the strongest validation there is.

The levels aren't a ladder to climb in every conversation. Level 1 and a good level 2 carry most everyday talks. Levels 5 and 6 tend to land hardest when the reaction is reasonable. And the same levels apply inward: self-validation ("my hurt makes sense, given what happened") keeps a client from validating everyone except themselves.

Coach it: have the client find "the true part". Before any conversation, ask: "What part of their view, even 10 percent, makes sense to you?" That sentence becomes the validation. Clients who can't find one usually aren't ready for the talk yet.

E: use an Easy manner

Easy manner means keeping the pressure low: a relaxed face and voice, some warmth, a little humor if it fits, and an invitation rather than a hard push. Think of it as making it easy for the other person to stay in the conversation and say yes, or to say no without a fight.

What easy manner isn't: pretending to be fine, smiling through hurt, or joking to dodge the topic. It also isn't humor at the other person's expense; sarcasm is a G problem, not an E skill. A client can say "I'm really hurt by this" in a calm, unhurried voice, and that is an easy manner.

Easy manner is also the letter that depends most on culture, neurotype and the relationship. Smiling during a disagreement reads as warmth in some families and as mockery in others. Many autistic clients find performing expected facial expressions exhausting; in one study of 92 autistic adults, masking autistic traits to fit in was linked to exhaustion and a shaken sense of self (Hull et al., 2017). Offer other routes to the same goal: a softer voice, a slower pace, sitting side by side instead of face to face, talking while walking, a short friendly text before a hard talk, or choosing a time when neither person is rushed.

Coach it: ask what lowers the pressure for this other person. A teen may talk more easily in the car; a partner may need the first ten minutes after work to themselves. Easy manner is often a choice of time and place more than a choice of face.

When GIVE leads, and when DEAR MAN or FAST does

Linehan's interpersonal effectiveness module asks clients to rank three priorities before a conversation: the objective, the relationship and their self-respect. Each has its own skill. In practice all three blend: DEAR MAN is what the client says, GIVE is how it lands, and FAST is where they hold their ground.

GIVE leads (relationship effectiveness) when:

DEAR MAN leads (objectives effectiveness) when the outcome matters most and the relationship is short or transactional: a refund, a landlord's repair, a correction to a bill. A little GIVE still helps, since gentle requests are harder to brush off, but the client shouldn't trade the objective for warmth.

FAST leads (self-respect effectiveness) when the client is tempted to give up a value to keep the peace, lie to avoid a fight, over-apologize, or act more helpless than they are, or when the other person uses the relationship itself as pressure ("If you loved me, you'd..."). Our DEAR MAN guide summarizes FAST.

Why GIVE and FAST need each other. GIVE faces outward, toward the other person's experience. FAST faces inward, toward the client's own values. A client who runs GIVE without FAST slides into people-pleasing and resentment. A client who runs FAST without GIVE can be right and alone. One sentence can hold both: "I can see how much this matters to you, and my answer is still no."

Three questions to ask a client before a hard conversation:

A yes to the second question usually means GIVE leads.

GIVE examples: a couple, a teen and parent, and two coworkers

Clients learn GIVE faster from a finished example than from four words. Each example below names the priority order, shows each letter, and gives the line to avoid.

1. A couple: coming home late without a text

Priya, 34, and Marcus, 36, invented, have been arguing about Marcus coming home two hours late without texting. Priya wants a text when he'll be late, and she wants the arguments to stop. Priorities: relationship first, the request second.

Marcus is on the receiving end, so GIVE is his skill too. Gentle means no defensive "I'm working for us." Interested means asking what those two hours are like for her. Validate: "So you're sitting there not knowing if something happened. I'd hate that too." The request lands because both of them are using the same skill.

2. A teen and parent: the phone rule

Jess, 15, and her mother Carla, invented, fight most nights about the rule that phones go in the kitchen at 10 p.m. Last night Jess yelled and slammed her door. Carla wants to keep the rule and stop the nightly fights. Priorities for Carla: the relationship first, then the rule (her objective), then staying calm enough to respect herself.

Jess can use GIVE too, which is the point of teaching it to both. Her version: "I know you worry I won't get enough sleep, and that makes sense. Can we try 10:30 on Fridays and see?" Validating a parent's worry is often what gets a teen's request a fair hearing.

3. Two coworkers: repairing after a meeting

Nadia, 41, invented, pointed out an error in her colleague Owen's numbers in front of the whole team. He snapped at her, and he's been cold since. They share a project for the next year. Priorities: relationship first, self-respect second (she was right about the error), no objective beyond a working relationship.

Notice that her apology is GIVE and her refusal to take back the correction is FAST. Clients with a people-pleasing pattern often need to see that split spelled out.

Common GIVE mistakes and how to coach them

A GIVE role-play script for session

Rehearsal is where GIVE becomes something the client can do under pressure. This script takes about 15 minutes. It uses an invented client, Elena, 29, who missed her sister Ana's birthday dinner after a bad week, and wants to repair things on a phone call. Replace the details with your client's situation, and keep each round to two or three minutes.

Setup (2 minutes)

Round 1: you model it, the client plays the other person (role reversal)

Round 2: the client tries it, you play the other person (easy version)

Round 3: a harder version

Cues to keep handy during any round

Debrief (3 minutes)

In a group, run it in threes: one practices, one plays the other person, and one watches with the four letters as a checklist, then rotate. By video, agree on how you'll signal stepping out of role, and let the client keep the worksheet beside the screen.

Teaching GIVE to couples and families in the same session

GIVE works best when everyone in the room is learning it, so it becomes a shared language rather than a tool one person uses on another.

When not to use GIVE

GIVE assumes a relationship worth protecting and another person who won't punish the client for being open. When that isn't true, gentleness and validation can turn into appeasement. Hold off, or change the plan, when:

What the research says about GIVE and validation

GIVE has been studied less than DBT as a whole, and honest teaching says so. What exists:

For the trials of DBT skills training as a package, see the evidence section of our DEAR MAN guide. In short: teach GIVE as one skill in a treatment plan, and measure whether it changes anything for this client. The worksheet's 0 to 10 ratings are there for that.

How to note GIVE in a progress note

"Practiced GIVE" tells a reviewer very little. A useful note ties the skill to a treatment goal, names how you taught it, and records what the client could do by the end.

An example in BIRP format, continuing the invented family above: Jess, 15, is in DBT-informed individual therapy for low mood and conflict at home. Her mother Carla joins this session by video. Treatment goal 3: reduce arguments that end in yelling or a slammed door from about four a week to one or fewer.

This note goes in the teen's record. Record the parent's participation and what matters for the teen's treatment, not the parent's own history. In DAP, the reports and what you saw go under Data and your reading of the rounds under Assessment; in SOAP, the reports go in Subjective and the observed rounds in Objective. Our BIRP note examples, DAP notes examples and SOAP note examples show each format in full, and the progress notes cheat sheet has wording for interventions and client response.

Phrases you can adapt:

A treatment plan objective with GIVE in it: "Over the next 8 weeks, client and parent will hold a weekly check-in using GIVE, recorded on the practice log, and arguments that end in yelling or a slammed door will fall from about 4 to 1 or fewer a week, by both reports." If you use a diary card, add a GIVE row so practice between sessions is tracked. Our DBT worksheets include a weekly skills log, and the emotional regulation worksheets help when a client's own feelings are too strong to start a GIVE conversation.

How this works in TranqBay

TranqBay is practice software for therapists in private practice: a practice website, online booking, video sessions, session notes and forms in one place. GIVE is often taught with more than one person in the room, so here's where that fits.

At practice.tranqbay.health you can see how a couples service shows up on a booking page with its own length and fee, and how sessions work when you invite a partner or a parent.

Frequently asked questions about the GIVE skill

Before your next session

Pick one client whose relationships keep going wrong in the same way, or a couple stuck in the same argument. Print the worksheet, find "the true part" of the other person's view together, rehearse it twice with the script above, and look at the practice log next week.

If couples or family sessions are part of your work, see how TranqBay works for private practice: you can look at the practice website designs where you'd describe that work, see how a couples service with its own length and fee looks on the booking page, and read how inviting a partner or parent to a session works. If you're deciding whether to join, this page explains how joining TranqBay works.

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