TBP 224 :: Dr. Jen Dragonette’s Psychological Tools for Climbers

Date: February 1st, 2023

Listen on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, or Spotify

Psychological Tools for Climbers and Neely Gets Really Personal…

This episode is one of the most meaningful episodes I’ve ever done, and I’ll tell you why in a sec. In it, I talked with psychologist Dr. Jennifer Dragonette about DBT, which stands for Dialectical Behavior Therapy, for a whopping hour and a half!

DBT is a set of psychological tools developed by Marsha Linehan to help people truly process and deal with emotion dysregulation, interpersonal conflict, and the everyday issues of daily life. DBT is very important in my own life because it’s what lifted me out of my most recent major depressive episode in 2017 and has helped me have way lower levels of anxiety and depression than I ever have before.

It helped save my life, to be honest. So when Dr. Jen contacted me to be on the show to talk about how DBT can help climbers, it was a full-body yes from me. I’ve incorporated DBT into my own climbing, and I’ve seen the incredible results it can produce in every part of life.

Dr. Jen does an excellent job of explaining some of her favorite DBT tools and how they can be used in climbing for things like:

  • fear of falling
  • knowing how you want to proceed when you’re having a bad day climbing
  • managing the urge to grab a draw, say take, give up, or not take enough rest
  • communicating effectively with your partners or spotters about what you want from them
  • how to allow our emotions to flow through us and out of us so we can move on

I also go into some very personal details about how some OCD tendencies played out in my life to contribute to severe anxiety and how DBT helped me stop the OCD behaviors. As well as how I’ve been using DBT tools to help overcome body image issues.

As a climber and a psychologist, Dr. Jen has such a deep understanding of how these tools apply to climbing that you’ll hopefully feel confident using them in your very next climbing session. She’s clearly very adept at teaching DBT, and I enjoyed every moment of this conversation 🙂

Show Links

Create a Training Program for Yourself

Learn the 4 fundamentals of program creation in this FREE 4-day email mini-course and have a fully built program by the end.

Sign up below to get started TODAY.

    We respect your privacy. Unsubscribe at any time.


    Nutrition 101 for Climbers

    I’ll send you emails about the 5 most important nutrition topics for climbers:

    • Decrease sugar cravings
    • How to eat for recovery
    • Supplements for climbers
    • How to easily increase protein
    • How to stay accountable


    Get the email sequence right away by subscribing below.

      We respect your privacy. Unsubscribe at any time.