ONLINE DBT THERAPY, COVERED BY INSURANCE
Online DBT Therapy: Skills For Emotions That Run Hot
Dialectical behavior therapy teaches concrete skills for intense emotions, impulsive urges, and relationships that keep combusting. Octave offers online treatment with DBT-trained therapists, matched to you in 1 to 3 days, with most members paying $28 or less per session with insurance.
1,200+
Therapists
In-network
with major carriers
3,400+
Licensed Therapists
$28
Typical Out-Of-Pocket Per Session, In Network
1 to 8
Days To A First Appointment
Insurance
We Work With Major Carriers
Clients only pay $28 per session, on average. How is this possible? Octave works with you and your insurance provider to secure the best coverage for therapy and make high-quality care accessible.Did you know?
Got an HSA or FSA? You can also use your pre-tax funds to pay for therapy.
Insurance Coverage
Save time and money
Know the cost of therapy before you start. Discover how much your insurance will cover for therapy with Octave. Simply select your state and insurance provider to see any out-of-pocket costs.
How it works
4 steps to start therapy
Step 01
Answer a few questions
Tell us a little about yourself and what you're looking for. You'll get an idea of your cost (if any) after answering.
Step 02
Find the right therapist
Browse licensed Octave therapists or work 1:1 with our team to find a match for your needs and schedule.
Step 03
Start therapy
Schedule your sessions and build a care plan with your therapist that measures progress.
Step 04
See results
Care is grounded in measurable outcomes, with tailored techniques to support real improvement in anxiety, depression, and other concerns.
Get seen by an Octave therapist within 1-8 days.
Provider credentialing section
Less than 4% of therapists who apply join the Octave network.
Every clinician is independently licensed, masters- or doctorate-trained, and reviewed for clinical fit before they see a single client.
3,400+
Therapists in network
Independently licensed across all 50 states
100%
License verified
Active state licensure confirmed quarterly with the issuing board
3.8%
Acceptance rate
Clinicians pass a multi-stage interview, case review, and reference check
10 yrs
Average experience
Median post-licensure clinical practice in the network
Outcomes and clinical evidence
A clearer alternative to the typical referral grind.
94%
report meaningful improvement within 12 sessions
Octave outcomes report, 2024 (n=18,400)
71%
show clinical reduction in PHQ-9 depression scores
Octave outcomes report, 2024 (n=18,400)
82%
remain in care at 6 months — well above industry average
Octave outcomes report, 2024 (n=18,400)
Published research
Meta-analysis
Andersson, G., et al. (2019).
Internet-delivered psychological treatments: from innovation to implementation.
World Psychiatry, 18(1), 20–28.
RCT
Hofmann, S. G., Asnaani, A., Vonk, I. J. J., Sawyer, A. T., & Fang, A. (2012).
The efficacy of cognitive behavioral therapy: A review of meta-analyses.
Cognitive Therapy and Research, 36(5), 427–440.
Outcomes
Lambert, M. J. (2017).
Maximizing psychotherapy outcome beyond evidence-based medicine.
Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 86(2), 80–89.
Comprehensive Review
Smith, J., et al. (2021).
Digital mental health interventions: bridging the gap between research and practice.
In our clients’ own words
Our success is measured by the satisfaction of the clients we serve. See what some of them have to say about their experience.
After their first therapist session, 9 in 10 Octave clients say that their therapy experience has been good or better.
Octave Patient
After their first therapist session, 9 in 10 Octave clients say that their therapy experience has been good or better.
Octave Patient
After their first therapist session, 9 in 10 Octave clients say that their therapy experience has been good or better.
Octave Patient
After their first therapist session, 9 in 10 Octave clients say that their therapy experience has been good or better.
Octave Patient
After their first therapist session, 9 in 10 Octave clients say that their therapy experience has been good or better.
Octave Patient
After their first therapist session, 9 in 10 Octave clients say that their therapy experience has been good or better.
Octave Patient
After their first therapist session, 9 in 10 Octave clients say that their therapy experience has been good or better.
Octave Patient
After their first therapist session, 9 in 10 Octave clients say that their therapy experience has been good or better.
Octave Patient
After their first therapist session, 9 in 10 Octave clients say that their therapy experience has been good or better.
Octave Patient
After their first therapist session, 9 in 10 Octave clients say that their therapy experience has been good or better.
Octave Patient
Frequently Asked Questions
Online DBT Therapy, Answered
When emotions arrive faster than you can manage them, DBT is built for that. Here's what it teaches, how it differs from CBT, and how it works at Octave.
Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is a structured, evidence-based therapy built for people whose emotions arrive fast and strong. The dialectic in the name is its core stance: full acceptance of who you are right now, and full commitment to change, held at the same time. It teaches concrete skills across four areas: mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness.
DBT was developed for borderline personality disorder and chronic self-destructive urges, where it remains the leading evidence-based treatment. It has since proven useful far more broadly: intense mood swings, impulsive behavior, self-harm urges, explosive anger, and relationships that cycle between too close and burned down. If your emotional reactions feel bigger than the situations that trigger them, DBT skills are built for exactly that.
DBT grew out of cognitive behavioral therapy and keeps its skills-and-practice structure, but shifts the emphasis. CBT primarily works on changing thoughts to change feelings; DBT starts from accepting intense feelings as real and survivable, then builds the skills to ride them without wreckage. If invalidation is part of your history, that acceptance-first stance is often what makes the change work possible.
Octave offers DBT through individual therapy: weekly one-on-one sessions with a DBT-trained therapist who teaches the skills, applies them to what happened this week, and tracks what is working. Some full-program DBT clinics add group skills classes and phone coaching; if your needs call for that level of structure, your therapist will say so and help you find it.
Yes. DBT’s skills-teaching format translates well to video, and the practice that drives change happens in your real life between sessions either way. Online delivery also removes the commute barrier during the exact weeks when getting anywhere feels hardest.
Yes, in most cases. Most Octave members pay $28 or less per session with in-network insurance, and the cost estimator confirms your number before booking. DBT at Octave runs as weekly individual sessions, so the per-session cost maps directly onto the plan you set with your therapist.
More On Online Dialectical Behavior Therapy
How Dialectical Behavior Therapy Works
Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) works from a premise the people who need it recognize immediately: the problem is not that you feel too much, it is that no one ever taught the skills for feelings that size. DBT holds acceptance and change together: your emotions are valid and survivable as they are, and your responses to them can be rebuilt. The therapy is concrete, structured, and practiced, closer to training than to open-ended talk.
The four DBT skill areas
DBT organizes its skills into four modules, each answering a different failure point:
Mindfulness: noticing what you feel while you feel it, which is the prerequisite for every other skill.
Distress tolerance: surviving crisis moments without making them worse, using skills built for the peak of the wave, not the calm after.
Emotion regulation: understanding what fuels your emotional weather and lowering the baseline so fewer moments become crises.
Interpersonal effectiveness: asking, refusing, and holding boundaries without either exploding or disappearing.
The order matters less than the practice; the skills compound, and your therapist sequences them around what your weeks actually look like.
What DBT sessions look like
Sessions are structured: review the week and where skills held or slipped, work the hardest moment in detail, and leave with specific skills to practice against the situations coming next. Many therapists use a simple diary card to track urges, emotions, and skill use, because patterns you can see are patterns you can plan for. Expect warmth and directness in the same therapist; DBT is famously both.
Who DBT fits best
DBT fits people whose emotions hit fast and hard: the ones told all their lives they are too much, too sensitive, too reactive. It was developed for borderline personality disorder and chronic crisis, and it works more broadly for mood swings, impulsivity, anger, and relationship whiplash. If your problem is quieter (persistent worry, low mood, stuck patterns), CBT or psychodynamic therapy may fit better. Tell your Care Navigator what your hardest moments look like, and they will match you with a therapist in 1 to 3 days.
If you need help right now
Crisis resources.
Octave is not an emergency service. If you or someone you love is in immediate danger, call 911 or go to your nearest emergency room.
988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline
24/7, free, confidential — call or text
Crisis Text Line
Text HOME — 24/7 trained counselors
National DV Hotline
24/7 confidential support
Veterans Crisis Line
Press 1 after dialing 988
SAMHSA National Helpline
Treatment referral & info, 24/7
Trevor Project
LGBTQ+ youth crisis support
Big feelings. Real skills.
Online DBT therapy with a DBT-trained, matched therapist, covered by most major insurance plans.
Find Your Best Therapist