DEAR MAN
A structured way to ask for a change, or say no, without losing either the relationship or your self-respect.
Originator: Marsha M. Linehan, 1993
Documented by Say It Better from published sources. Not our framework.
What it is
DEAR MAN is an interpersonal effectiveness skill from dialectical behaviour therapy. Seven letters, of which the last three are refinements rather than separate steps:
Describe, Express, Assert, Reinforce — then stay Mindful, Appear confident, Negotiate.
It is a structure for making a request or refusing one, designed to hold three things at once: getting what you are asking for, keeping the relationship, and keeping your self-respect. The premise is that these three goals genuinely conflict, and that most failed asks fail because the person optimised for one and did not notice they were spending the other two.
The structure also builds in something most advice skips: an explicit invitation to negotiate. Negotiate is part of the framework, not a failure of it.
Where it comes from
Dialectical behaviour therapy was developed by Marsha M. Linehan, an American psychologist, in the 1970s and 1980s. It was originally designed for people with borderline personality disorder and chronic suicidality, and it is one of the better-evidenced psychological treatments in that area.
DEAR MAN sits inside the interpersonal effectiveness module — the part of the programme that deals with asking for things, saying no, and keeping relationships intact while doing it. The full skills teaching appears in Linehan's Skills Training Manual for Treating Borderline Personality Disorder (1993) and, more accessibly, in DBT Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets (2nd edition, 2014), both published by Guilford Press.
It has since been adopted well outside its clinical origin, in coaching, management training and general self-help. It is Linehan's framework, and Say It Better documents it rather than owning it.
What problem it addresses
Asking for things fails in one of two directions, and most people have a default.
The first is asking so indirectly that nothing changes. The request is buried in a paragraph, hedged four times, and ends with an escape hatch that lets the other person decline without ever having been asked. Both parties leave with the same situation they started with, plus a little more resentment.
The second is asking so forcefully that you get the thing and damage the relationship — or, more commonly, avoid asking at all because you can only imagine it going this way.
DEAR MAN addresses the middle. Describe and Express build the case, so the request is not arbitrary. Assert makes the ask unambiguous. Reinforce gives the other person a reason that is not just your preference. Mindful is the part that holds the line when they push back. Negotiate is the part that keeps it a conversation.
It is particularly designed for the moment when you tend to fold. The framework gives you something to say that is not an escalation and not a retreat.
When to use it
- Asking for a change in someone's behaviour that you have raised before without effect.
- Saying no to a request you cannot or will not take on.
- A high-stakes ask where you want to be taken seriously — a raise, a deadline, a change of terms.
- When you know your own pattern is to either fold immediately or escalate.
- Setting a limit you intend to keep, in a relationship you intend to keep.
- Any conversation where you have rehearsed it and still not had it.
When not to use it
- Where the other person is dangerous or coercive. Assertiveness scripts are for relationships where you have some standing and some safety.
- In an emergency, where action comes before negotiation.
- When the other person has no capacity to grant what you are asking for. Then the conversation is about accepting a limit, not making a request.
- In brief transactional exchanges, where the full structure is disproportionate to the moment.
- When you are using it as a script to win rather than to ask. The framework includes Negotiate for a reason.
- In a close relationship where the immediate need is connection rather than a change.
Step by step
- 1
Describe
The facts of the situation, plainly, with no judgement attached. I have been asked to take on the Henderson account as well as my own.
- 2
Express
Your feeling or opinion about it, in the first person. I am worried about the quality of both if I do.
- 3
Assert
The ask, clearly and without hedging. I would like the Henderson work to go to someone with capacity. No escape hatch at the end of the sentence.
- 4
Reinforce
Why it is good for them, or what they get. It means the accounts I am on now keep their current turnaround. Skip this and the ask reads as a demand.
- 5
Mindful
Stay on the point. Do not get drawn into side issues or old grievances. If they deflect, repeat the ask once, calmly, in the same words.
- 6
Appear confident
Steady tone, no excessive hedging, no apologising for having asked. Confident here means calm and unhurried — it does not mean loud.
- 7
Negotiate
Offer what you can, ask what they can. I could take it on for a month if it is genuinely temporary. Could we agree that in writing? The ask is not weakened by this. It is made workable.
Real-world examples
A colleague asks you to review a deck tonight.
You have asked me to review the deck tonight. I am not comfortable agreeing when I cannot give it proper attention. I am going to say no this time. If you get it to me tomorrow morning I will do it properly before the afternoon. The Reinforce here is the alternative you are offering.
You want Saturday mornings back from a partner's work.
For the last few weekends, the mornings have gone to your work. I feel like I am on my own with the kids. I would like Saturday mornings to be work-free. I would get a proper break, and we would both start the week less frayed. Note that Express names your feeling, not their behaviour.
Your manager's priorities contradict each other and you need clarity.
The priorities in Monday's email and the ones in the planning document do not match. I am unsure what to work on first. Can you tell me which takes precedence? Short, factual, and it asks for a decision rather than complaining about the confusion.
A family member keeps asking you to host an event you cannot afford.
You have asked me three times to host this year. I feel anxious every time it comes up. I am not going to host it. What I can do is bring the dessert and help set up. Negotiate appears here as a genuine offer, not a concession that undoes the no.
Example scripts
I want to ask for something, and I would rather be direct about it.
The facts as I see them are... and how I feel about it is...
So what I am asking for is...
I am not going to move off this, but I am happy to talk about how.
That is not something I can do. What I can do is...
I have raised this before and I would like to settle it today.
These lines show the shape of the pattern. They are examples to adapt, not scripts to repeat word for word.
Common mistakes
Skipping Reinforce
Without a reason that benefits them, the ask is structurally a demand. It is the step most often left out and it changes how everything before it lands.
Turning Express into a character attack
I feel that you are being selfish is not an expression of feeling. It is a verdict, and it will be treated as one.
Letting Mindful become stonewalling
Repeating the same sentence without engaging at all is not the skill. Mindful means staying on the subject, not refusing to hear anything else.
Reading Appear confident as aggression
It means steady and unhurried. Raised volume or a hard tone converts the framework into the second failure mode it was designed to avoid.
Negotiating away the whole ask
If step seven leaves you with nothing you actually needed, you have not negotiated. You have found a more elaborate way to fold.
Using it as a checklist in a warm conversation
Seven steps delivered in order to a close friend sounds transactional. The structure is for the conversations where you need the scaffolding.
Limitations and considerations
- It comes from a clinical context, and the structure can feel transactional in a close relationship where the other person is looking for connection, not terms.
- Seven steps is a lot to hold in your head during a live conversation. Most people need to write it down or rehearse it several times.
- Reinforce assumes there is something the other person wants. Sometimes there genuinely is not, and the step has to be skipped or invented, which weakens it.
- It does not tell you what to do if the other person simply refuses. Holding the limit afterwards — and living with the consequences — is a separate skill.
- The evidence base is for dialectical behaviour therapy as a whole programme, not for DEAR MAN in isolation. It is a component of an intervention that has been studied as a package.
- It was developed for people who struggle with emotional regulation under interpersonal stress. For someone who does not, parts of it can feel like over-engineering a simple request.
Sources and further reading
DBT Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets (2nd edition)
Marsha M. Linehan, Guilford Press, 2014
https://www.guilford.comSkills Training Manual for Treating Borderline Personality Disorder
Marsha M. Linehan, Guilford Press, 1993
https://www.guilford.comCognitive-Behavioral Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder
Marsha M. Linehan, Guilford Press, 1993
https://www.guilford.com
These are the published works behind this page. Where a framework has a named originator, that person or organisation is credited above.