Skills Training Manual for Treating Borderline Personality Disorder (Paperback)

~ Marsha M. Linehan (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

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

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.

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 -- Charles R. Swenson, M.D., New York Hospital, Westchester Division

Linehan's treatment program is an extremely valuable resource for novice therapists, as well as more experienced clinicians interested in integrating useful and creative strategies in their therapeutic work -- The Scientist Practitioner

Review

"[Linehan is] one of the world's leading experts on BPD."--Time Magazine

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Product Details

• Paperback: 180 pages
• Publisher: The Guilford Press; 1 edition (May 21, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0898620341
• ISBN-13: 978-0898620344
• Product Dimensions: 10.6 x 8.6 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (62 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #3,124 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

76 of 77 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars DBT was designed for people with BPD!, March 19, 2005

A Kid's Review

In tweleve-step groups they usually say something like "take what you need and leave the rest." I would suggest that non-borderline clients and the practitioners who help them follow that advice with this book. There is no need to erase us from the title of this book so that non-BPDs will feel less shame buying or using it. And there is no need to judge the exercises and handouts as overly simplistic. They are what they are. They were designed to help us (borderlines).

If you are not borderline, and do not have experience working with borderlines, you really don't know what we need. Marsha Linehan does. I'm not claiming that every example or every exercise in the book works for every borderline, but M.L. does not claim that either!

Many borderlines (including myself) were traumatized in early childhood and failed to learn basic skills at that age. Therefore, exercises that to the non-BPD sufferer seem designed for children, were actually designed for people who never had the chance to experience a normal childhood and learn the social skills that others learned as children.

I do agree with the reviewers who say that much of DBT is helpful for people with other diagnoses, and even people who are not mentall ill, but this manual is for US, and does not need to be changed. Those who are not a part of the target audience should use what they can, and leave the rest - without judgement.

Those practitioners who see the applicability of DBT to non-borderline patients should take the time to figure out what works and write new books with new therapies, based on DBT. That is what Marsha Linehan did. She took CBT as a framework and developed DBT for a specific population - people who suffer from Borderline Personality Disorder.

For me, the DBT program that I attend, which uses this book as a handbook, has been invaluable. I needed this training. When I started DBT 5 months ago, while I did not feel suicidal, I felt that my self-destructive behaviors were eventually going to lead to my premature death. I had a term for this. I called myself "terminally incompetent" even though I have a high IQ, an advanced degree, etc. I just meant that eventually, my inability to simply get along in the world was going to kill me. I have felt this way all of my life, and I've been describing myself using that term for years, even though I had 10 years of therapy before this program. Now I still have ups and downs, and I still need many more years of therapy, but I know I'm going to make it.

Thank you, Marsha Linehan, and thank you Transitional Day Treatment Program at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital (NYC).

57 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Book to Deal with Borderline Personality Disorder, May 27, 1999

By A Customer

I suffer from borderline personality disorder, and the content of this book has been a great help when dealing with my emotional disability. I love this book because it focuses on "treating" the disorder, whereas other books' focuses are often the cause of the disorder or pathology of it. The positive attitude of facing the real issues of those who suffer from borderline personality disorder is encouraging. I can see the author's deep understanding of the disorder, and I appreciate her efforts to explain what the probrems really are and how to deal with them.

37 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not only for Borderline Personality Disorders, October 19, 2000

By A Customer

This is new for me to write a reveiw. I first obtained this book in 1997. I received two long term therapy sessions and one short term. These skills were a magor factor of me getting thru some horribles times for the next 3 years. This book should be listed as a skills manual not only for Borderline but different mental disorders including all types of addiction.I highly recommend this theory to be taught in more areas than now being taught. I have been almost without any symtoms of Borderline and many other symtoms. Thanks to this manual. Marsha Lineham needs to be honored. Thanks for all the help.