Marcus'Mind helps you engage with DBT not just as a module list, but as a navigable knowledge space — by situation, emotion, question, module, comparison, neighborhood, curated list, or direct term.
Search, situations, guiding questions, topic fields and modules open up the same body of content. Merged decision aids have a shared destination; their former addresses remain as redirects.
Guiding questions show concrete options and labeled comparison criteria. Additional context can be expanded separately. General entry questions without professional comparison criteria offer a selection of existing content.
Under stress, For learning and For professionals are fixed display profiles. Only For myself is individually configurable and shows the full scope by default. Core explanations stay visible regardless of profile.
Lists, bookmarks and personal settings are stored locally in the browser or in the app. The list view and list management are separate areas; management belongs to the settings.
Notice feelings, understand connections and practise skills. The three sister apps have different strengths and can be used independently.
Feelings & patterns
Name feelings precisely, discover skills and recognise your own patterns over time.
Knowledge & orientation
Understand DBT, explore connections and return to useful content.
Practice & application
Practise skills in your own situations and work towards your own words, step by step.
Independent apps. No data is transferred between the apps, including bookmarks, entries or drafts.
These four books form the documented professional frame of reference. Individual content also points to specific passages. The bibliographic details below refer to the German-language editions shown.
Marsha M. Linehan
DBT Skills Training Manual
Psychosozial-Verlag, Gießen, 2016 · ISBN 978-3-86294-035-6
The primary theory and teaching text of DBT. Contains the complete skills training program, module structure, treatment logic, and rationale for all four DBT core modules. Foundation for most content in Marcus'Mind.
Marsha M. Linehan
Arbeitsbuch mit Handouts und Arbeitsblättern
Psychosozial-Verlag, Gießen, 2016 · ISBN 978-3-86294-036-3
The companion workbook to the manual. Contains all handouts and worksheets of the skills training in structured form. Direct basis for the practical tools and exercise sheets in the app.
Matthew McKay, Jeffrey C. Wood, Jeffrey Brantley
Dialektische Verhaltenstherapie in der Praxis
Junfermann Verlag, Paderborn, 2008 · ISBN 978-3-87387-688-0
Practice-oriented workbook for self-help and guided practice. Extends and supplements the Linehan materials with practical exercise sequences and everyday applications. Second major source in Marcus'Mind.
Martina Sutor (Hrsg.)
Neue DBT-orientierte diagnoseübergreifende Konzepte, Schwerpunkt Skills-Training
5., vollständig überarbeitete Auflage, Springer, Berlin Heidelberg, 2022 · ISBN 978-3-662-64108-8
In-depth professional reference for therapists. Covers DBT-oriented transdiagnostic concepts and extended skills training approaches. Supplementary reference for professional contextualization in Marcus'Mind.
Anyone citing Marcus'Mind in an academic or professional paper can use the version and date from the footer as a citation anchor.
What becomes visible in Marcus'Mind should remain traceable in terms of subject matter. That's why the app cleanly separates the knowledge model, derivation, and interface.
If a comparison, a bridge, or a next step feels surprising to you, that shouldn't stay hidden. Marcus'Mind is explicitly built to make such relations visible and discussable.
The app doesn't offer a single main navigation — it offers several productive entry points. You choose the path that fits your current concern.
Questions in Marcus'Mind aren't just text teasers — they are structured entry points into different destination spaces of the app.
Detail pages don't make random suggestions. The first next step is derived from three candidate pools, overlap filters, and the currently active usage role.
Learning path steps that are also comparison candidates appear only in the comparison. And when the comparison is already visible on the page as its own section — for instance, on question nodes — the app skips an additional first step entirely.
The node that appears as the first next step at the top is not repeated further down as a teaser card in Practices, Learning Path, or Comparison. This keeps detail pages readable and avoids competing suggestions.
Three pools of possible candidates are calculated for each node: linked practices, learning path steps, and comparison candidates. The app selects the first next step from these pools:
| Access | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Apply and practice | Nodes from practiceNodeIds — concrete exercises, tools, or protocols that make the skill practical. |
| Learn and go deeper | Nodes from learningPathSteps — the structured learning path of the node. Steps that are also comparison candidates are filtered out in advance. |
| Compare and tell apart | Nodes from comparisonNodeIds — direct comparison candidates from the same comparison group. |
Depending on the active role, the app checks the three pools in a different order. The first pool with an available candidate wins:
| Role | Priority (left = highest) |
|---|---|
| Acute mode | Practice → Learning path → Comparison |
| Support and reference mode | Comparison → Learning path → Practice |
| Learning mode | Learning path → Practice → Comparison |
| Personal mode | Practice → Learning path → Comparison |
Marcus'Mind doesn't work with isolated individual pages, but with connected nodes. This makes transitions between terms, situations, modules, and practice formats navigable.
Every content element in the app is a node — a skill, a bundle, a component, a module, a concept, a question. The dark type marker at the top of each card tells you what kind of node you're looking at.
A connection is a direct relationship between two nodes — from A to B. On a node detail page, you'll find the direct connections in the "Relationships" section.
| Connection type | Meaning |
|---|---|
| related_to | Thematically related — the most common form. Subject proximity between two nodes. Behavior analysis is linked to problem solving. |
| cluster_with | Shared cluster — both nodes belong to the same thematic neighborhood. Radical acceptance and Turning the mind belong to the topic area reality acceptance. |
| has_component | Bundle consists of components — a bundle like STOP contains its individual steps. The shared skill bundle combines “Build mastery” and “Cope ahead”. |
| bridge_to | Module bridge — connects two DBT modules via a shared node (see separate paragraph below). Mindfulness of current emotions is linked to radical acceptance. |
| practice_of | Practice of a skill — a concrete exercise that makes a skill practical. The Check the Facts worksheet belongs to the skill Check the Facts. |
| decision_path_to | Decision path — structures a choice situation and leads to the fitting node. From Check the Facts, a decision path leads to Opposite Action. |
| contrasts_with | Explicit contrast — two concepts deliberately juxtaposed. Basis for comparisons where no curated comparison group exists. STOP is contrasted with Build mastery and Cope ahead: immediate help and longer-term development. |
| child_of | Hierarchical assignment — e.g., a component belongs to its bundle. Observing is one of the mindfulness “what” skills. |
A module bridge is the connection type `bridge_to`. It explicitly connects a node to a second DBT module — across the module boundary. Module bridges make visible where a skill or concept lives not only in its own module but also belongs in a different module context. In the node detail views, they additionally appear as a separate "Module Context" section, where you see the bridge text for the respective other module.
Some nodes have especially many connections — they are the dense spots in the network. The app calls such nodes neighborhoods and collects them in their own overview. Starting from there, you quickly land in the middle of a topic area rather than at the edge. Currently, a node counts as a neighborhood if it has at least three connections to non-component nodes.
Small markers appear across the nodes: node type, module, priority, learning path kind, cluster category, and source. Here you'll find a compact explanation of what each value means.
The node type tells you at a glance what you're looking at — a concrete exercise, a skill, an overarching concept, or a navigation question. It appears as a dark marker tag in the header of every node card. The overview below shows how the types differ functionally and what role they play in the DBT knowledge space.
| Tag | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Skill | Actionable and atomic. A single, self-contained technique from the DBT manual that can be practiced directly and applied in a situation (radical acceptance, opposite action, observing and describing). The atomic unit of practice. |
| Skill bundle | Composed and sequential. Multiple steps or skills that are applied as a unit and form a clear sequence (STOP, DEAR MAN, TIP, ABC PLEASE). More than the sum of its parts — the orchestrated application. |
| Component | Fragmentary and partial. A single step within a bundle that only makes sense in combination with the other components (the D in DEAR MAN, the S in STOP). Not usable on its own. |
| Module | Chapter-like and thematic. One of the four main DBT areas that holds together a whole family of related skills, bundles, and concepts (Mindfulness, Distress Tolerance, Emotion Regulation, Interpersonal Effectiveness). The largest organizational unit. |
| Framework | Structural and explanatory. Concepts that describe, model, or organize something: theories (biosocial theory, emotion model), treatment structures (skills training, session structure), strategy sets (validation strategies, dialectical strategies). Conceptual containers. |
| Principle | Stance-guiding and normative. Concepts that describe how to think or act: dialectics, willingness, self-compassion, clear mind, irreverence, radical genuineness. Not structural descriptions, but lived core attitudes. |
| Protocol | Procedure-structured and occasion-based. A binding action path for a specific situation or session that is worked through in a fixed sequence (suicide protocol, behavior chain analysis). Stricter and more situational than a bundle. |
| Tool | Material and instrumental. A concrete aid — worksheet, overview, checklist, diary — that supports the application of skills (Diary Card, Pros-and-Cons list). Something to look at, fill out, or take with you. |
| Exercise | Practical and doable. A concrete, executable activity that makes a skill tangible and lets you practice it (5-4-3-2-1 grounding, half-smile practice). The homework of a theory. |
| Question | Navigational and orienting. Not content, but a signpost: a question that leads to fitting nodes ("How do I interrupt impulsive behavior?"). Entry point, not destination. |
| Concept | Generic and terminological. An explanatory term that stands behind skills and bundles and is needed to understand them (Wise Mind, Emotion Mind, vulnerability factors). The vocabulary of the DBT language space. |
In acute distress or when you're a danger to yourself, a knowledge app is not enough support. In such situations, reach out to someone you trust, your therapist, a crisis service, or emergency medical care.
