A structured way of asking for something or saying no, taken from dialectical behavior therapy: Describe, Express, Assert, Reinforce, while staying Mindful, Appearing confident, and Negotiating.

How to do it

1. 1Describe the situation in facts a recording would confirm, with no judgments or mind-reading: "The last three Fridays you arrived after seven."
2. 2Express how you feel or what you think about it in the first person, briefly: "I end up anxious and cancelling my own plans."
3. 3Assert the request or the refusal in plain words. Do not hint and do not assume the other person can infer it: "I need you to be here by six, or to tell me by noon if you cannot."
4. 4Reinforce: say what is in it for the other person or for the relationship if they agree, ahead of time and sincerely.
5. 5Stay Mindful of your objective. When the conversation is pulled toward old grievances, attacks, or side issues, return to the request, repeating it if necessary, and let provocations go unanswered.
6. 6Appear confident: steady voice, eye contact appropriate to your culture, no trailing off or pre-emptive apology. You do not need to feel confident to act it.
7. 7Negotiate: be willing to give to get. Offer alternatives, or turn the problem over ("What do you think would work?"), while keeping sight of what you will not trade away.

When to use it

• •You need to make a request or refuse one and tend either to avoid the conversation or to let it become a fight.
• •The other person is skilled at changing the subject, and you need a structure that brings you back to your point.
• •A workplace, family, or medical conversation matters enough to script in advance.

Counters

Evidence and how strong it is

DEAR MAN is one of the interpersonal-effectiveness skills in Linehan's DBT Skills Training Manual (2nd ed., 2015). DBT as a whole has randomized-trial support, originally for chronically suicidal people with borderline personality disorder (Linehan et al. 2006), and a component analysis found that treatment arms including skills training did better on several outcomes than individual DBT therapy without it (Linehan et al. 2015). Those trials test a months-long package of mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal skills in clinical populations. No trial isolates DEAR MAN, and its use by the general public in everyday disputes is an extrapolation. The acronym's components overlap heavily with older assertiveness training, which has its own body of supportive evidence (Speed, Goldstein & Goldfried 2018). Evidence strength: clinical consensus with RCT support for the parent treatment; the specific skill is untested on its own.

1. Linehan, M. M. (2015). DBT Skills Training Manual (2nd ed.). Guilford Press
   The source of the DEAR MAN skill, its seven components, and the guidance on when interpersonal-effectiveness skills can and cannot be expected to work.
2. Linehan, M. M., Comtois, K. A., Murray, A. M., Brown, M. Z., Gallop, R. J., Heard, H. L., et al. (2006). Two-year randomized controlled trial and follow-up of dialectical behavior therapy vs therapy by experts for suicidal behaviors and borderline personality disorder. Archives of General Psychiatry, 63(7), 757-766
   Randomized-trial evidence for DBT as a full treatment package in a clinical population.
3. Linehan, M. M., Korslund, K. E., Harned, M. S., Gallop, R. J., Lungu, A., Neacsiu, A. D., et al. (2015). Dialectical behavior therapy for high suicide risk in individuals with borderline personality disorder: A randomized clinical trial and component analysis. JAMA Psychiatry, 72(5), 475-482
   Component analysis indicating that DBT conditions including skills training outperformed individual therapy without skills training on several outcomes.
4. Speed, B. C., Goldstein, B. L., & Goldfried, M. R. (2018). Assertiveness training: A forgotten evidence-based treatment. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 25(1), e12216
   Review of evidence for assertiveness training, the older tradition that DEAR MAN largely restates.