Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder [Hardcover]

Marsha Linehan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 14, 1993 | ISBN-10: 0898621836 | ISBN-13: 978-0898621839 | Edition: 1

This volume is the authoritative presentation of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Linehan's comprehensive, integrated approach to treating individuals with borderline personality disorder. DBT--which has since been adapted for other difficult-to-treat disorders involving emotion dysregulation--combines cognitive and behavioral strategies with elements of psychodynamic, strategic, and other modalities. Delineated are specific strategies for contingency management, exposure, cognitive modification, and skills training. In-depth descriptions of skills training procedures are provided in the companion manual. Core emotion regulation skills are also taught directly to clients in Linehan's skills training videos.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Every once in a very long while in our field, a clinical innovation is introduced that profoundly improves patient care. Marsha Linehan's development of a cognitive-behavioral approach to borderline personality disorder is such a rare innovation....Her techniques are clear, teachable, and learnable, and make good common sense to the therapist and the patient. Dr. Linehan's methods have greatly improved my treatment of borderline individuals and my teaching of others in how best to understand and treat these patients.' --Allen Frances, M.D.

"Marsha Linehan's tremendously in-depth and informative book and its companion skills-training manual offer a needed guide to the cognitive-behavioral treatment of borderline personality disorder....Her method has become so widely used by clinicians that the experts in psychosocial treatments consider it one of the best....Marsha Linehan's methods are highly eclectic because they are empirically based; they have been fashioned to fit what works best for borderline patients." --Lester Luborsky, Ph.D.

"Linehan is one of our most creative and articulate clinicians....As a true scientist-professional, she has not only been innovating in the treatment of one of the most daunting of disorders--borderline personality--but has successfully subjected her ideas to controlled empirical scrutiny." --Gerald Davison, Ph.D., University of Southern California

"Dr. Linehan's approach is sensible, pragmatic, and effective. Most importantly, it offers the therapist a humane and sensitive perspective on persons with Borderline Personality Disorder. In short, it treats both the therapist and the client in a fashion that produces results." --Mark Ciocca, Ph.D., Central New Hampshire Community Mental Health Center

"Linehan is a brilliant, compassionate, and rigorous therapist for borderline patients. What's more, and what is most unusual for master therapists, she has proven its efficacy in published randomized, controlled trials. What is fortuitous for borderline patients and their therapists is that she has painstakingly crafted a wise book and user-friendly manual well grounded in principle, detailed in its strategies, and exportable to a wide range of treatment settings.

"Our hospital has applied Linehan's treatment in several settings over the past five years: acute inpatient, extended inpatient, day treatment, and outpatient. We have primarily worked with borderline clients, but have also had success with some schizophrenics. Patients, families, and staff have received this new approach with enthusiasm; it makes common sense to them and feels very practical. It's a treatment that integrates well with biological, rehabilitative, most psychodynamic, and family treatment modes, and parallels treatments for eating disorders, substance abuse, and PTSD from childhood abuse....Linehan has set a high standard of treatment for borderlines in the 1990s; the patients will be the ultimate beneficiaries." --Charles R. Swenson, M.D., New York Hospital, Westchester Division

About the Author

Marsha M. Linehan, PhD, ABPP, is Professor of Psychology and Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington, Seattle, and Director of the Behavioral Research and Therapy Clinics there. She is founder of the Marie Institute of Behavioral Technology and the company Behavioral Tech, LLC. The recipient of numerous awards for her distinguished clinical and research contributions, Dr. Linehan has served as president (2007) of the Society of Clinical Psychology, Division 12 of the American Psychological Association.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 558 pages
• Publisher: The Guilford Press; 1 edition (May 14, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0898621836
• ISBN-13: 978-0898621839
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #27,379 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #33 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Mental Health > Personality Disorders
  • #43 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Mental Health > Compulsive Behavior

More About the Author

Marsha M. Linehan, PhD, is a professor of psychology and an adjunct professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Washington. She is also Principal Investigator and Director of the Suicidal Behaviors Research Clinic, a federally financed research program for evaluating treatments of suicidal behaviors. She has an on-going clinical practice and is active in clinical consultation, supervision, and training of mental health professionals in the United States and Europe.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

142 of 153 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is THE MOST EFFECTIVE psychotherapy method, September 24, 2001

By 

James Katt "Sam I Am" (CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder (Hardcover)

As soon as our county mental health clinic applied Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), our re-hospitalizations, crisis contacts, suicidal behavior and recidivism rates for our DBT patients went close to ZERO. This is the book I recommend as the start for anyone wanting to be effective in doing psychotherapy - including Psychiatrists, Psychologists, Social Workers, Marriage Family Therapists and Nurses. It empowers the therapist by giving him/her the skills to help severely mentally ill and difficult patients - not just ones with borderline personality disorder. For many, if not most, mental health programs, people with borderline personality disorder are traditionally frustrating, maddening, and looked on with disgust by therapists and medical staff. They are often rejected by staff and treated with anger because of the lack of adequate treatments for the disorder. Yet this is one of the most common mental illnesses. And persons with the disorder repeatedly are hospitalized for suicidal behavior - at large cost to the counties involved. Or worse, they are rejected for hospitalization and allowed to continue to be self-destructive. With DBT this is no longer the case. Therapists who understand DBT are confident and assured when helping seriously ill, constantly hospitalized patients. Therapist who don't often are frustrated, and rejecting of them. No other textbook in therapy is as detailed and well-delineated as this book. It is applicable to inpatient, outpatient, and emergency room settings. DBT works effectively in emergencies, with actively suicidal patients, to reduce the acuity of the situation. It is effective even in short (< 7 day) hospital stays. It takes about ONE YEAR to moderately understand Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. It takes about THREE MONTHS of reading and rereading the book to begin to grasp the concepts described in the book. This book is very "meaty" despite its slimness. The book has its own vocabularly (with an eastern philosophy view), which takes the reader out of the usual psychological jargon, which makes the book initially difficult to read. This accounts for the initial anger that readers may have with this book, unless they are aware of eastern philosophies. The book is NOT psychobabble. Chronic patients with years of psychotherapy actually are more accepting of DBT because it doesn't use the psychobabble they are used to and associate with therapeutic failure. The psychotherapy method described is THE MOST EFFECTIVE method I have ever found. It is NOT purely cognitive behavioral therapy. It is very psychodynamic it its point of view. What is interesting is that the therapists who (I find) naturally do Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (without knowledge of this form of therapy) are Psychoanalysts who are well-centered in their own personalities. A difficulty any therapist will have in performing Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, is that they will have to work on their own personality faults, blindspots, and Countertransferance, while treating patients. This is a part of DBT. This is crucial in order to perform DBT. But then, continuing supervision or on-going therapy of the therapist, is an important part of being a good therapist. Most therapists already know 80% of the content of this book. However, this book puts all the facets of the art of psychotherapy in the best delineated, and detailed manual, I have found. It is highly recommended.

64 of 67 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Respectful to BPD individuals. Techniques used pragmatic, September 23, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder (Hardcover)

As a person with Bipolar Disorder my psychiatrist recommended this book. I devoured it. For a text the reason it was actually enjoyable was because so many of the techniques of therapy I could incorporate on my own. The Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) is not limited to BPD. The Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment of which DBT is alongside, can be put into use immediately. Also, Linehan is respectful in her writing style toward patients/clients, with BPD. She is not quick to prescribe medications, (that being only a brief mention). Linehan's style is to focus on environmental reasons a person becomes BPD but not to the point where the client feels helpless to change. She respects people where they're at but wants to take them where they want to be-and that's by integrating positive thoughts about themselves into positive actions-skills training-to have steadier relationships in work and life. I highly recommend this book to anyone diagnosed with any mood or personality disorder.

52 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating!, January 19, 2004

By 

Colleen Stevens (Ohio, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder (Hardcover)

I found this book to be so fascinating and eye opening. Although this book is written for those who TREAT borderline personality disorder, I think it will be very helpful to those who have the disorder. I know it has been a great learning tool for me, and I suffer from BPD. Marsha Linehan shows an amazingly compassionate understanding towards the mind of a person with this disorder. I found myself astonished at her incredible ability to understand the way I think. I think the author is nothing short of a genius. The book is great...but it is complicated and it is not a good book for those who don't enjoy intensely intellectual reading. If you are looking for a book to give you quick facts, this is not the book for you. You must enjoy reading to get into this book.