Programs · Crisis moments · Stormproof
Stormproof
Getting through a crisis without making it worse with DBT
A crisis is high arousal plus a loud urge to act — and the urge is usually the expensive part. This program teaches the DBT crisis survival skills: body-first brakes, bridges across the hard hours, riding out the urge itself, and acceptance for the storms that carry something real. Your own log ranks the skills by what actually works in your body, and by week six the top three become your crisis kit.
Storms have a shape, too
- Messages sent at the peak that can't be unsent.
- Money spent, drinks poured, or doors slammed in hour one.
- Distress that feels like it will never crest — so acting seems like the only exit.
- The hangover of a bad hour, billed over the following weeks.
- Knowing the skills exist, and not knowing which of them work for you.
Your crisis log builds the kit
Not a course you watch — a loop you run. Stormproof records how far your distress actually dropped after each skill, ranks them on your own numbers, and promotes the winners into a three-slot kit.
Measure
A twenty-second evening check-in on how stormy the day was, plus a two-minute crisis log whenever a storm comes through.
daily + as it happensLearn
Short sessions with Nathan teach the method — the distress curve, STOP and TIPP, bridging the hours, urge surfing, acceptance.
10–15 min · most daysAdjust
The weekly review ranks each skill by the distress drop it actually produced for you, and promotes or demotes kit slots.
weekly review↻ the loop runs weekly — six times
Every skill you use gets scored on the gap between peak distress and distress after — needing at least three logged uses before it can rank. Candidates lock at week four, and the top three become the kit you carry out. Not the skills that sound best; the ones your own storms proved.
Six weeks, one method
Sixteen sessions and five weekly reviews. The first week is free — including your baseline storm report.
Week 1How Storms WorkThe curve, the crest, and the cost3 sessions
Week 2The Body BrakesPeak equipment, drilled cold4 sessions
Week 3Bridging the HoursThe long tail of the curve3 sessions
Week 4The Urge ItselfSurf it, weigh it cold, read your record4 sessions
Week 5When the Crisis Is RealSurvive first, accept second, solve third4 sessions
Week 6StormproofingYour kit, your data, your drill3 sessions
Nathan
DBT: crisis & impulse · guides 4 programs
The crisis-and-impulse specialist — calm, direct, built for the moment right before you do something you'll regret. Nathan's whole job is the sixty seconds between urge and action.
“Hi, I'm Nathan. Over the next six weeks we're not going to stop the storms — we're going to find the three skills that actually work in your body, and make sure they're the ones you reach for.”
The distress-tolerance module, faithfully built
Stormproof implements Linehan's DBT distress-tolerance module — the crisis survival skills (STOP, TIPP, distract with ACCEPTS, self-soothe, IMPROVE, urge surfing, pros and cons) and the reality-acceptance skills (radical acceptance, turning the mind, willingness) — in the order the module teaches them: survive the hour first, accept second, solve third.
- Crisis survival skillsSTOP, TIPP, ACCEPTS, self-soothe, IMPROVE
- Urge surfing and pros-and-cons
- Reality acceptanceradical acceptance, turning the mind, willingness
- Skill-effectiveness ranking from your own log
Not a crisis service — and it says so
Active suicidal intent, plans, or recent self-harm route to referral: crisis lines and full DBT with a clinician. The crisis-resources card is pinned globally, one tap from every screen, for the whole program rather than only at onboarding.
The TIPP skills carry per-skill contraindication tags, and flagged users get a modified track that hides or substitutes them — cold-water and intense-exercise brakes are not safe for everyone. This program is not medical advice.
Stormproof, next to the field
| StormproofResiliens | Calm Harmcalmharm.stem4.org.uk | Virtual Hope Boxmilitaryonesource.mil | Grouport DBT Self-Guided Programgrouporttherapy.com | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $149 one-time (draft) — the program is yours | Free in the UK and on US Android; $1.99 on the US iOS App Store | Free | $500 one-time, lifetime access |
| Structure | 6 weeks · 16 sessions + weekly reviews | A toolbox, not a curriculum — five activity categories (Comfort, Distract, Express Yourself, Release, Random) plus breathing, each run on a five- or fifteen-minute timer. No sequence, no weeks, no graduation | A toolbox, not a curriculum — user-loaded photos, music and reasons for living, coping cards, activity planning, plus guided imagery, controlled breathing and muscle relaxation | 48 video sessions of about 22 minutes each — 17+ hours — with 48 homework assignments and reading manuals. At the suggested pace, roughly a year |
| Personalization | Crisis log → skill leaderboard → your kit | Users hide trigger activities, journal, build a 'safety net' of helpful thoughts and people, and track streaks of days they've overcome the urge | High, but manual and clinician-mediated: patients and providers personalise the content together. Nothing is measured or ranked | None |
| Human support | Self-guided · clinician-referral gates built in | None. States explicitly that it is not a substitute for assessment and individualised treatment by a professional | Designed as an accessory to treatment rather than a standalone program — it assumes you already have a clinician | Taught by a licensed facilitator with a peer forum, but no direct therapist interaction |
| Access | Self-serve, start today | Anonymous, no accounts, works offline, collects no personal information | Free and open, no gating | Direct-to-consumer, web only |
| Breadth | 24+ program catalog · bundle 2-3 related programs and save | Covers the distract and self-soothe slice of distress tolerance. No evidence it teaches STOP, full TIPP, IMPROVE, pros-and-cons, or the reality-acceptance skills — its own framing is 'the distress tolerance element of DBT' | Covers the paced-breathing and muscle-relaxation half of TIPP plus distraction and self-soothe. No STOP, no urge surfing, no pros-and-cons, no reality acceptance | The full four-module curriculum — distress tolerance is one module among four, spread across roughly a dozen of the 48 sessions |
| Platforms | Web · iOS · Android | iOS · Android | iOS · Android | Web |
Sources: competitor pricing and program pages — every production value carries a source URL and access date, and unpublished facts are labeled "not published," never guessed.
Why we built it differently
- Your kit is chosen by your own numbers. Calm Harm asks whether an activity helped; Stormproof scores each skill on the measured gap between peak distress and distress after, needing three logged uses before it can rank, and promotes the top three into the kit you leave with.
- A sequence, not a shelf of tools. Survive the hour, accept second, solve third — in the order the module teaches it, across six weeks, rather than a grid of activities to pick from when you're already at the peak.
- The whole module, not a slice. STOP, all four TIPP brakes with their contraindication tags, ACCEPTS, self-soothe, IMPROVE, urge surfing, pros-and-cons, and the reality-acceptance skills — where the free tools cover distraction and breathing.
Start free. Continue if it's working.
First week
- Onboarding + two full sessions
- Evening check-in + crisis log
- Your baseline storm report
Full program
- All six weeks of Stormproof, yours to keep
- Every session, review, and exercise
- Web + Untangle app access
Working on more than one thing? Related programs bundle together — two or three at a discount. Bundles are announced at launch.
Before you start
Is this a crisis service?
No, and it never pretends to be. Crisis resources stay pinned one tap from every screen, and active intent, plans, or recent self-harm route to crisis lines and full DBT with a clinician — that's the treatment with the evidence behind it.
What if the cold-water or exercise skills aren't safe for me?
Each TIPP skill carries its own contraindication tags, and anything you flag at onboarding is hidden or substituted on a modified track. You'll never be handed a brake that isn't safe for your body.
Isn't distraction just avoidance?
Not in the hour a storm crests — that's what week three is about. Distraction done right bridges the tail of the curve so you don't act on the urge; the acceptance and problem-solving work comes after, in the right order.
How much time does it take?
Twenty seconds each evening, two minutes whenever a storm comes through, and ten to fifteen minutes most days for the session. Logging hours late is fine.
Be first to get stormproof
Stormproof is launching soon on the web and in the Untangle app. Join the early-access list and we'll let you know the moment it opens.
One email when your program opens. No drip campaign.