A TheraHive research initiative — try our AI Practice Partner and tell us what you think.
One of the most reliable ways to deepen your understanding of a skill is to teach it to someone else. In DBT, this is sometimes called teach-back ... and it works. Explaining a skill out loud, in real time, to someone who needs help, forces you to actually understand it rather than just recognize it.
We built an AI practice partner to explore what this looks like in a digital learning environment. Her name is Nikki, and she needs your help.
First: A Quick Primer on the Pros and Cons Skill
Before you jump in, here's what you need to know. The DBT Pros and Cons skill is a distress tolerance tool, it's designed for moments when you're facing a strong crisis urge and need help making a clearer decision before acting on it.
When to use it: When someone has an urge to do something in a moment of crisis that they might regret, and they need to slow down and think it through.
Step 1: Always start by identifying the specific crisis urge before moving into the quadrants. Skipping this step means the whole exercise loses its anchor.
Step 2: Capture Pros & Cons across four quadrants:
- Pros of acting on the urge: What would feel good or seem helpful about doing it?
- Cons of acting on the urge: What are the downsides or consequences?
- Pros of NOT acting on the urge: What's gained by resisting?
- Cons of NOT acting on the urge: What's hard or painful about holding back?
Step 3: Label each Pro and Cons as long-term, short-term, or both ... you can also do this as you go.
Step 4: Once all four quadrants are complete and labeled, the person weighs them against their values and commits to a path forward ... make the decision!
That's the skill. Now go help Nikki use it.
Meet Nikki
Nikki is a 19-year-old college student in the middle of a crisis. Something just happened in class, she's spiraling, and she has an urge she's not sure she should act on. She knows DBT, but she can't apply the skills on her own right now — she needs someone to walk her through it.
That someone is you.
Your job is to guide her through the Pros and Cons skill, step by step. There's no script. You'll need to remember the structure, ask the right questions, and help her reach a real decision.
Note: Nikki is an AI character created for educational purposes. This is not therapy, and no real personal information should be shared in the chat. Conversations are logged anonymously to help us improve the experience.
Try It Now
Tell Us How It Went
This is an early build and your feedback matters. The survey takes about 2 minutes.
TheraHive is a psychoeducational DBT platform. We build structured, skills-based programs that help people apply DBT in real life. This practice partner is part of our ongoing research into AI-assisted skills training.
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