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Opposite Action is a core skill in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) that helps you change emotions by changing what you do. When your emotions don’t fit the facts—or when acting on them would make things worse—Opposite Action invites you to do the exact opposite of your emotional urge, on purpose and with your whole body.
What Is Opposite Action?
In DBT, emotions are understood as action programs: they prepare your body and mind to respond in specific ways (for example, fear urges you to avoid, anger urges you to attack, shame urges you to hide).
Opposite Action means:
Acting opposite to the emotion’s action urge, when that emotion does not fit the facts or when acting on it is ineffective (Linehan, 2015).
Examples:
Fear → urge: avoid, escape → Opposite Action: approach gradually, stay in contact with what you fear when it is actually safe.
Anger → urge: attack, confront intensely → Opposite Action: soften your voice, listen, walk away, seek understanding.
Shame → urge: hide, look down, withdraw → Opposite Action: make eye contact, speak up, stay in the room.
Sadness → urge: isolate, stay in bed → Opposite Action: get up, move your body, reach out to someone.
The skill is not about suppressing emotions. Instead, it uses your body and behavior as a lever to shift emotional intensity over time.
When Should You Use Opposite Action?
DBT teaches a crucial gatekeeping question:
Does my emotion (and its intensity) fit the facts of the situation?
Opposite Action is indicated when:
The emotion does not fit the facts.
Example: feeling intense shame for making a small, understandable mistake.
The emotion is too intense or too long-lasting for the situation.
Acting on the emotion would move you away from your values or goals.
Suppose the emotion does fit the facts (e.g., fear when you are genuinely in danger, anger in the face of abuse). In that case, DBT usually recommends problem solving, boundary setting, or protective action, not Opposite Action (Linehan, 2015).
Why Does Opposite Action Work? (The Science)
Opposite Action rests on behavioral principles: changing behavior feeds back into physiology, thoughts, and emotions. When you repeatedly act as if a different emotion were present, your nervous system gradually recalibrates.
Research indicates:
In a laboratory single-case experiment, a DBT-style Opposite Action procedure led to greater decreases in emotional intensity than acting consistent with emotion, particularly for sadness and guilt/shame, in participants with borderline personality disorder (BPD).
A master’s thesis on “opposite to emotion action” found that using opposite emotional responses (e.g., positive imagery and behavior) could effectively shift sadness, supporting the core premise of Opposite Action.
DBT emotion regulation skills modules (which include Opposite Action) have shown benefits for emotional reactivity, self-harm, and BPD symptoms compared with control or other skills conditions (e.g., Dixon-Gordon et al., 2015).
Reviews of DBT skills training as a stand-alone intervention suggest that DBT skills—Opposite Action among them—may improve anxiety, depression, self-harm, and general emotional functioning across diagnoses (Valentine et al., 2020).
In short: what you do matters. Your actions can either reinforce an emotion or gently train it to soften.
“Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength.”
"It is not the strength of the body that counts, but the strength of the spirit."
How to Do Opposite Action – Step by Step
This sequence follows the DBT emotion regulation module, particularly Emotion Regulation Handout 9 (“Opposite Action”) and related materials (Linehan, 2015).
Identify and Name the Emotion
Ask:
What emotion am I feeling right now? (e.g., fear, shame, sadness, anger, guilt)
Where do I feel it in my body?
Accurate labeling improves emotion regulation and is fundamental in DBT.
Check the Facts
Use the DBT “Check the Facts” skill:
What actually happened? (strip away assumptions and mind-reading)
Is there objective evidence that supports my emotional interpretation?
Does the type, intensity, and duration of this emotion fit the facts?
If the emotion fits the facts, you might act on it effectively (e.g., assertive anger, protective fear). If it does not fit the facts—or is too intense for the situation—Opposite Action becomes your main tool.
Identify the Action Urge
Ask:
This emotion is telling me to do what?
Fear → “Run away, avoid, cancel.”
Shame → “Hide, apologize excessively, disappear.”
Anger → “Attack, yell, slam doors.”
Sadness → “Stay in bed, ignore texts, give up.”
Get very concrete: the urge is the specific next behavior your emotion wants.
Choose a Clear Opposite Action
Now design a behavior that is directly opposite to the emotional urge and consistent with safety and your values:
Fear of a social event → urge: cancel → Opposite Action: go, stay for 10–30 minutes, make eye contact, say hello to at least one person.
Shame after a small mistake → urge: hide, apologize excessively → Opposite Action: acknowledge the mistake once, repair if needed, then stay engaged in the conversation.
Anger in a minor disagreement → urge: raise your voice, attack → Opposite Action: lower your tone, validate one true thing the other person is saying, ask a curious question.
Engage Opposite Action with Your Whole Body
DBT emphasizes that “acting opposite” includes your facial expression, posture, tone of voice, and words (Linehan, 2015).
If you are practicing opposite to shame, lift your head, look up, relax your shoulders, and meet people’s eyes.
If you are practicing opposite to anger, unclench your fists and jaw, slow your breathing, and deliberately soften your tone.
Doing the opposite half-heartedly or with “leaky” hostile body language will usually not shift the emotion.
Repeat Until the Emotion Changes
Opposite Action is rarely a one-off maneuver; it’s repeated practice:
Repeat Opposite Action until your emotion intensity decreases or shifts (Linehan, 2015).
For some emotions (like long-standing shame or chronic fear), you may need many rounds of consistent Opposite Action, much like exposure therapy.
Opposite Action Skill in DBT: Everyday Examples
Fear of Emailing Your Supervisor
Emotion: Fear
Thoughts: “If I ask for clarification, they’ll think I’m incompetent.”
Urge: Avoid sending the email, procrastinate.
Opposite Action Plan:
Check the facts:
There is no evidence your supervisor punishes questions; in fact, they’ve encouraged them.
Identify urge: not send the email, stew in anxiety.
Opposite Action: draft a concise email asking two specific questions, read it once for clarity (not perfection), and send it within 10 minutes.
Whole-body: Sit upright, exhale slowly, visualize yourself as capable and learning.
Repeat: Do this consistently whenever you need clarification.
Over time, your emotional system learns that asking for help does not equal humiliation or catastrophe.
Shame After a Social Blunder
- Emotion: Shame
- Situation: You mispronounced a word in a meeting and stumbled over your explanation.
- Urge: Avoid speaking for the rest of the meeting, turn camera off, leave early.
Opposite Action Plan:
Acknowledge internally: “I’m human; everyone stumbles sometimes.”
Stay in the meeting; keep your camera on if online.
Choose to contribute at least one more comment before the end.
Maintain open body language: shoulders back, relaxed breathing, eyes toward the screen or group.
Sadness & Withdrawal
Emotion: Sadness / low mood
Urge: Stay in bed, scroll social media, cancel plans.
Opposite Action Plan:
Get out of bed, shower, and put on real clothes.
Go outside for a 10–15 minute walk.
Send a message to a supportive person, or briefly join a low-pressure social activity.
This overlaps with behavioral activation for depression, but Opposite Action is especially focused on doing the moment-by-moment opposite of emotion-driven urges.
Opposite Action Skill in DBT: Everyday Examples
Common Obstacles & How to Work with Them
“My Emotion Does Fit the Facts.”
If your emotion fits the facts (e.g., fear in an actually dangerous situation, anger at ongoing abuse), Opposite Action is not about overriding your survival system. Instead:
Use problem solving, boundary setting, or leaving the unsafe situation.
Opposite Action can sometimes be used later for leftover or exaggerated emotional reactions once you’re safe.
“I Can’t Even Tell What I’m Feeling.”
If your internal world feels fuzzy or flooded:
Start with mindfulness of current emotion—simply notice sensations, thoughts, and urges without judgment.
Use an emotion list or DBT emotion regulation worksheets to help you label what you feel.
Only then decide whether Opposite Action is appropriate.
“I Tried Once and It Didn’t Work.”
Opposite Action is a practice, not a magic trick:
Sometimes your emotion won’t shift after a single Opposite Action.
The goal isn’t to feel “perfectly calm” but to reduce intensity enough to act in line with your values.
Track small changes: maybe you still felt anxious, but you sent the email anyway—that is success.
“It Feels Fake or Inauthentic.”
This is a very common reaction.
DBT frames Opposite Action as “acting as if” your Wise Mind, not your emotion, is in charge (Linehan, 2015).
You’re not lying about how you feel; you’re choosing a different behavior pathway while acknowledging the emotion in the background.
Over time, your internal state often shifts to become more congruent with your chosen actions.
Integrating Opposite Action with Other DBT Skills
Opposite Action rarely works in isolation; it fits into a larger DBT skill ecosystem:
Mindfulness: Helps you notice the emotion and urge early enough to choose Opposite Action instead of going on autopilot.
Check the Facts: Clarifies when Opposite Action is indicated vs. when problem solving or effective action is needed.
TIPP & other crisis skills: When emotions are too high to think clearly, use body-based crisis skills first, then Opposite Action once you’re more regulated.
PLEASE skills, positive activities, and behavioral activation: These reduce vulnerability to intense emotions, making it easier to use Opposite Action consistently.
For clinicians, integrating Opposite Action with exposure exercises, values work, and behavioral activation can deepen the effect, especially for anxiety disorders, depression, and trauma-related avoidance.
Case Example: Using the Opposite Action Skill
Ana, a 26-year-old university student, often experiences intense shame after speaking in class. A small slip—mispronouncing a term or losing her train of thought—triggers harsh self-talk like, “Everyone thinks I’m stupid,” and she feels a strong urge to avoid raising her hand, sit in the back, or skip class altogether. Over time, these avoidance behaviors have increased her anxiety and started to interfere with her participation and academic performance.
In one seminar, Ana offers a comment, briefly uses the wrong term, corrects herself, and the professor simply nods and moves on. Inside, her shame spikes to what she would rate as 90/100. Her urges are to look down, shut down, and mentally promise herself, “I’m never speaking again.” Remembering her DBT work, she pauses to check the facts: nobody laughed, no one commented on her mistake, and the professor treated her input as valid. She recognizes that the intensity of her shame does not fully match the facts and decides this is a good moment to use Opposite Action to shame.
Instead of following the urge to hide, Ana practices Opposite Action. She straightens in her chair, uncrosses her arms, lifts her gaze toward the professor, and keeps taking notes. She commits internally to one concrete opposite behavior: contributing at least once more before class ends. When the professor later invites questions, Ana raises her hand and asks a brief clarifying question. She still feels exposed, but her behavior now reflects her values—learning and engaging—rather than her shame-driven urge to disappear.
After class, Ana notices that her shame has dropped from 90/100 to about 40/100. A classmate even messages her to say, “Nice question today—I was wondering the same thing.” Reviewing the experience with her therapist, Ana sees how naming her emotion, checking the facts, identifying action urges, and then acting opposite (staying present, keeping open body language, and speaking again) helped reduce her emotional intensity and move her life toward what matters to her. She and her therapist decide to keep practicing this sequence in future classes so that, over time, speaking up feels more natural and less shame-loaded.
Conclusion
Opposite Action is one of DBT’s most deceptively simple yet powerful tools. By:
Identifying and naming your emotion
Checking whether it fits the facts
Pinpointing the exact action urge
Choosing and enacting a clear opposite behavior with your whole body
Repeating until the emotion shifts
…you gradually retrain your emotional system. Over time, you build a life that is less driven by fear, shame, anger, and hopelessness—and more driven by values, clarity, and choice.
Suppose you’re using this article to create psychoeducational materials or therapeutic exercises. In that case, the 7-Day Opposite Action Experiment can be adapted into a worksheet, group activity, or digital module within a broader DBT-informed program.
FAQ
Most frequent questions and answers about the Opposite Action Skill in DBT
Opposite Action is most helpful when your emotion does not fit the facts, or when its intensity is much higher than the situation calls for.
If your emotion does fit the facts—for example, fear when you are in real danger, or anger in the face of ongoing abuse—then the priority is:
Protecting yourself
Setting boundaries
Problem solving or leaving the unsafe situation
In those cases, “acting opposite” could be harmful. Use Opposite Action mainly when the emotion is misleading, exaggerated, or driving you toward behaviors that go against your long-term values.
That’s very common. Acting opposite to an intense emotion can feel uncomfortable or “wrong” initially:
Your brain is used to the old pattern (avoid, hide, attack, etc.).
When you do something different, your nervous system may protest and temporarily ramp up the feeling.
Think of it like exposure therapy or learning a new workout: the first reps can feel the hardest. As long as you’re staying safe and not in a genuinely dangerous situation, it’s usually okay if your emotion spikes a bit at first. The key is repetition—many people notice that, over time, the emotional intensity decreases more quickly and the new behavior feels more natural.
It can feel like that, but in DBT the goal is not to lie about your feelings or plaster a fake smile over real pain.
Instead:
You acknowledge the emotion (“I feel shame right now.”).
You choose behavior based on your values and Wise Mind, not just on the emotion’s demands.
You let your actions gently influence your emotions over time.
You’re not denying your experience; you’re preventing your emotion from being the sole driver of your behavior.
Opposite Action is behavior-focused and emotion-specific:
It targets the action urge of a particular emotion (e.g., fear → avoid, shame → hide, anger → attack).
You then choose behaviors that are directly opposite to that urge.
“Cheering yourself up” or generic positive thinking often stays at the level of thoughts and doesn’t necessarily change what you do. Opposite Action is about concrete behavior (what you do with your body, posture, voice, and choices in the moment). Thoughts can support it, but behavior is the main lever.
Also normal. Emotional storms can make it hard to remember skills.
A few ideas:
Plan ahead for one specific situation (like Ana in class) and rehearse your Opposite Action plan in writing.
Use reminders: notes on your phone, a sticky note, or a short phrase like “Opposite Action now” on your desk.
Practice Opposite Action first in low-intensity situations (mild anxiety or mild shame) so it becomes more automatic when emotions are stronger.
After the fact, do a quick review: “What emotion was that? What was the urge? What Opposite Action could I have used?” This builds the mental pathway for next time.
The goal is not perfection. Every time you remember Opposite Action, even once, you’re strengthening a new pattern that can slowly reshape how you respond to your emotions.
DBT Opposite Action Skill Book Recommendations
Here is a collection of the best books on the market related to DBT Oposite Action Skill:
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References
- Chamberlain, K. D. (2019). Turn that frown upside-down! The effectiveness of opposite action in changing emotion (Master’s thesis, University of Arkansas). UARK ScholarWorks.
- Dixon-Gordon, K. L., Chapman, A. L., & Turner, B. J. (2015). A preliminary pilot study comparing dialectical behavior therapy emotion regulation skills with interpersonal effectiveness skills and a control group treatment. Journal of Experimental Psychopathology, 6(4), 369–388.
- Fassbinder, E., Schramm, E., & colleagues. (2016). Emotion regulation in schema therapy and dialectical behavior therapy. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 1373.
- Linehan, M. M. (2015a). DBT skills training handouts and worksheets (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.
- Linehan, M. M. (2015b). DBT skills training manual (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.
- Sauer-Zavala, S., Wilner, J. G., Cassiello-Robbins, C., Saraff, P., & Pagan, D. (2019). Isolating the effect of opposite action in borderline personality disorder: A laboratory-based alternating treatment design. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 117, 79–86.
- Therapist Aid. (n.d.). Emotion Regulation: DBT skills [Worksheet]. Retrieved from TherapistAid.com.
- Valentine, S. E., Smith, A. M., & Stewart, K. (2020). A review of the empirical evidence for DBT skills training as a stand-alone intervention. In The handbook of dialectical behavior therapy (pp. 325–358). Academic Press.
- DBT.tools. (n.d.). Opposite Action Skill – Emotional Regulation. Retrieved from dbt.tools.
- Kaiser Permanente. (2020). Emotion regulation DBT skills [Patient handout].
