Programs · Relationships · Common Ground
Common Ground
Getting your needs met while keeping the relationship with DBT
Most people were never taught to ask. This program teaches the DBT interpersonal effectiveness skills: a script for asking that people can hear, skills for protecting the relationship and your self-respect while you do it, and a clean no that holds. You practice on a ladder of real asks, starting smaller than you think, and your own log keeps the honest score.
The swallow has a shape, too
- Needs that get swallowed rather than said.
- A yes that arrives while you're still meaning no.
- Conversations rehearsed for days and never had.
- Asks that come out sideways and start a fight you never wanted.
- Resentment you can feel but can't quite locate.
Your ask ladder advances on self-respect
Not a course you watch — a loop you run. Common Ground reads how you felt about yourself after each ask, not whether you got a yes, and prescribes the next rung from there.
Measure
A thirty-second weekly check-in — asks you didn't make, yeses you didn't mean, and where the resentment sits — plus a log for each real ask.
weekly + per askLearn
Short sessions with Simone teach the method — the three stakes, DEAR MAN, GIVE, FAST, and the intensity dial.
10–15 min · most daysAdjust
The weekly review clears rungs and prescribes the next ask, calibrated against what you predicted would happen.
weekly review↻ the loop runs weekly — six times
A rung clears when you come out of the ask with your self-respect intact, on two separate attempts — and whether the person said yes is explicitly not counted. That's the honest measure: you control the asking, never the answer. The ladder starts smaller than most people expect, and a calibration chart shows your predictions against what actually happened.
Six weeks, one method
Fifteen sessions and five weekly reviews. The first week is free — including your baseline asking report.
Week 1The Three StakesThe map under every hard conversation3 sessions
Week 2DEAR MANThe script, and the first real asks4 sessions
Week 3GIVEThe relationship stake3 sessions
Week 4FAST and the NoThe stake you've been bleeding4 sessions
Week 5When It Doesn't WorkThe honest week4 sessions
Week 6Keep the VoiceYour data, your dashboard, your practice2 sessions
Simone
DBT: interpersonal effectiveness · guides 4 programs
The interpersonal-effectiveness coach — warm and refreshingly practical about relationships, scripts and all. Simone treats asking for what you need as a skill, not a personality trait.
“Hi, I'm Simone. Over the next six weeks we're not going to make people say yes — we're going to build the ask, and the record that shows you can make it.”
The interpersonal effectiveness module, faithfully built
Common Ground implements Linehan's DBT interpersonal effectiveness module — objectives, relationship and self-respect effectiveness; DEAR MAN, GIVE and FAST; challenging the myths about asking; and the intensity factors that decide how hard to push — through behavioral rehearsal and self-monitoring on a ladder of real asks.
- The three stakesobjectives, relationship, self-respect — Linehan
- DEAR MAN, GIVE, and FAST
- Challenging myths about asking
- Intensity factors and behavioral rehearsal
Skills won't fix an unsafe relationship
The onboarding safety screen routes anyone afraid of a specific person's reaction to support resources first, and keeps that person's situations out of every practice session — the ladder is built only from contexts where asking is safe.
Power asymmetries at work, or around immigration status, are treated as real constraints rather than as a deficit in your skills. This is not medical advice, and not couples or family therapy.
Common Ground, next to the field
| Common GroundResiliens | UCEBT — DBT Interpersonal Effectiveness Moduleucebt.teachable.com | dialecticalbehaviortherapy.comdialecticalbehaviortherapy.com | Rejection Therapyrejectiontherapy.com | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $149 one-time (draft) — the program is yours | $75–$175 for the individual module; $435 for the four-module bundle | Free | $29.99/month or $99.99/year |
| Structure | 6 weeks · 15 sessions + weekly reviews | 46 instructional and demonstration videos across the four modules, following Linehan's published handouts and worksheets | Thirteen IE pages — communication styles, assertiveness skills, validation, boundaries, modulating intensity, conflict, then DEAR MAN, GIVE and FAST — each with a video and a downloadable worksheet | A daily challenge to go and get rejected, plus a course and card decks. Not a skills curriculum |
| Personalization | Ask log → self-respect rating → next rung | None — and the page says so outright: no tracking, no quizzes, no assignments | None. No account, no login, no saved state | None described |
| Human support | Self-guided · clinician-referral gates built in | None; entirely self-paced | None | None |
| Access | Self-serve, start today | Direct-to-consumer, web, lifetime | Free and open on the web | Direct-to-consumer subscription |
| Breadth | 24+ program catalog · bundle 2-3 related programs and save | The interpersonal module can be bought alone, which is unusual — though the course page doesn't name DEAR MAN, GIVE or FAST | The full curriculum, and the honest baseline: the teaching itself is free and reasonably thorough | Asks specifically — but aimed at desensitising you to refusal rather than at getting a need met while keeping the relationship |
| Platforms | Web · iOS · Android | Web | Web | iOS |
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
- The ladder is made of real asks. Not scenarios to read about or a blank ladder to fill in yourself — a curated hierarchy of requests, starting smaller than most people expect, with the next rung prescribed from what you actually did.
- You're scored on your half, not theirs. A rung clears on your self-respect rating, twice, with the answer explicitly not counted. The one product built around asking runs the opposite rule — it requires you to be rejected daily and treats a yes as a failure.
- Free teaching, finally instrumented. The best free site teaches DEAR MAN, GIVE and FAST properly and can't do anything with what you try. The paid courses are video libraries that say plainly they include no tracking. This runs the practice and keeps the score.
Start free. Continue if it's working.
First week
- Onboarding + two full sessions
- Weekly check-in + ask log
- Your baseline asking report
Full program
- All six weeks of Common Ground, 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
Will this make people say yes to me?
No, and we won't pretend otherwise. The other person always gets a vote. What the program builds is the ask — and the ladder clears on how you felt about yourself afterwards, explicitly regardless of the answer you got.
What if asking isn't safe in one of my relationships?
The onboarding screen checks for that directly, routes you to support resources first, and keeps that person's situations out of every practice session. Skills don't fix an unsafe relationship, and the program says so.
Isn't DEAR MAN just a script?
It's a script you then have to hold under pressure, which is why week two covers staying in it and week four covers the intensity dial. The ladder exists so you practise on real asks rather than rehearsing in your head.
How much time does it take?
Thirty seconds for the weekly check-in, a short log after each real ask, and ten to fifteen minutes most days for the session. The asks themselves are the work.
Be first to find common ground
Common Ground 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.