DBT for Cancer and Serious Illness:
Help Clients and Families Navigate Difficult Diagnoses and Live with Intention
Sign up for the next training offered via Praxis in Fall 2026.
The Curriculum
Skills for the reality of serious illness
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The STOP Skill
Making complicated decisions under stress
When facing cancer, patients are often asked to make high-stakes decisions while flooded by fear, uncertainty, and grief. Stress narrows thinking and pulls people toward autopilot rather than more fully considered choices.
The STOP skill — Stop, Take a step back, Observe, Proceed — interrupts that response, creating space to observe what's actually happening. Patients check the facts, release assumptions, and consider what else is important: relationships, values, quality of life. STOP helps people access their Wise Mind, an intuitive sense of what is true and right for them. From that place, decisions are more likely to reflect what matters most.
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Emotion Regulation
Constructively managing powerful emotions
DBT reframes emotions as signals, not problems. Fear, grief, and anger are understandable responses to illness, carrying important information about what matters. Patients learn to observe their feelings rather than push them away — since avoidance tends to intensify them.
Instead of turning away from the emotion, the goal is to honor its message and use it wisely and skillfully to decide how to respond.
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Interpersonal Effectiveness
Effectively navigating relationships
Stressful situations make it easy to say what feels urgent in the moment rather than what will actually serve a relationship or a goal. DBT's interpersonal effectiveness skills help patients manage difficult conversations with family, friends, and care teams.
The first step is to clarify their priority — what outcome matters most, how important the relationship is, and how they want to feel about themselves afterward. From there, the skills offer practical guidance on how to express what matters most, clearly and directly, in ways that protect both the message and the relationship.
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Radical Acceptance
Finding meaning and purpose while living with illness
Cancer sometimes shifts priorities and prompts people to re-evaluate their sources of comfort and faith. In challenging times, it's understandable to focus on the darkness and question whether meaningful living is even possible.
Research shows that directing energy toward what matters most helps patients feel less hopeless while sustaining a sense of purpose and hope. This curriculum uses radical acceptance to help people face their full experience honestly, holding grief and difficulty alongside what is still nourishing and meaningful — reconnecting with the values, relationships, and activities that make life feel worthwhile.
