Treatment approach · DBT
DBT therapyin Orange County.
DBT therapy here is skills inside PHP or IOP in Laguna Beach. Not a standalone weekly group.
Located in Laguna Beach, California
(949) 670-9345- The weekPHP or IOP
- StartDistress skills
- ThenThe rest of the plan
What this page is
DBT sits in the program week.
DBT therapy here is DBT-informed PHP or IOP in Laguna Beach, not a standalone weekly group. Distress skills come first, then relationships, then identity. We are DBT-informed, not a packaged weekly skills clinic. It is not a hospital or a locked unit.
A skill for the next hour. Then the rest of the week.
Skills inside the week
How DBT sits in a PHP or IOP week.
A DBT-informed IOP or PHP day at Exist runs the whole model. Group for the pattern. 1:1 for the history. Distress skills for the hour that will not wait. EMDR or somatic work when that belongs in the plan. Psychiatry when medication is part of it. You go home at night — or to Truth House if you are already in the program. The day is not a weekly skills hallway. Personality, trauma, and use sit in the same groups when they are part of the week.
Body
Breath, the skill that makes the next hour possible. The week starts in the body when the mind cannot.
Mind
The automatic thought, the split, the story that just flipped. We work the reaction before asking you to change the life.
Brain
What sits under the hour — personality, trauma, and use read as one history, in a safe room.
Skills
Distress skills, then time with your own clinician. Not a hallway that waits until you are “stable enough” for the rest of the work.
Who holds the week
C-DBT in the room. Not a weekly skills clinic.
Dr. Courtney Tracy · Founder and chief clinical officer
Skills sit inside her PHP or IOP week. We are DBT-informed, not a packaged hallway.
Founder
Dr. Courtney Tracy
In the room
LCSW · PsyD · CCTP
Clinic
Joint Commission PHP / IOP
What the skills hold
The names in the room. Same week.
This is not a directory of other modalities or a grid of program intensities. Those live on their hubs. These are the ways the hard hour arrives here — treated together, not after each other.
What we treatPersonality
Skills for the hard hour first. Then relationships, then identity. The borderline page holds that name.
- BPD
- Distress skills
The hard hour
A skill that makes the next hour survivable. Not a lecture. Not a weekly group you add later.
- Distress
- Same week
Use as relief
Alcohol, prescriptions, the night that needed a way through — treated with the hour, in the same week.
- Dual diagnosis
- Same week
The rest of the plan
EMDR and somatic work sit in the same PHP or IOP week when they belong. Not a later clinic.
- EMDR
- Somatic
Three steps to a start date.
- 01
Reach out
Call (949) 670-9345 or send the form. You talk to the clinic — not a call center.
- 02
We verify
We check your benefits and map DBT-informed work against PHP, IOP, and outpatient — honest about which fits.
- 03
A start date
We recommend a level of care and set a date — and talk through Truth House if you’re coming from out of town.
Questions about DBT therapy, answered plainly.
DBT-informed PHP or IOP in Laguna Beach — skills for the hard hour, in the same week as personality work and dual diagnosis. Groups, 1:1, distress skills, then the rest of the plan. Nights at home or at Truth House. We are not a hospital and not medical detox. Call (949) 670-9345.
Something we didn’t cover? Call (949) 670-9345 — you talk to the clinic, not a call center.
The skill does not wait in a weekly group.
Call Exist at (949) 670-9345 or send the admissions form. We’ll say honestly whether PHP, IOP, outpatient, or a referral is the right level — and what your benefits actually cover.
Clinically reviewed by Dr. Courtney Tracy, LCSW, PsyD · Reviewed September 2026