Marsha Linehan

Book title and author: DBT Skills Training Manual Second Edition I used DBT Marsha Linehan reviewed 6-9-24

Why I picked this book up: I picked up this manual for the depth, experience and her great teaching approach. Where I shopped I found the set of these 2 that were together and I wanted to buy them.

Thoughts: This book focuses on emotions, emotion regulation, distress tol- erance, and mindfulness, as well as new findings in the social sciences; and new treatment strategies de- veloped within the cognitive-behavioral paradigm. The major changes in the revised skills package are described below. She uses her background, Catholic schooling, her mast mindfulness skills, religion, 34 years practicing Zen Buddhaism and niw Zen Master philosophy and many years experience to create this excellent book.

This manual is organized into two main parts. Part I (Chapters 1–5) orients readers to DBT and to DBT skills training in particular. Part II (Chapters 6–10) contains the detailed instructions for teaching the specific skills. The client handouts and worksheets for all of the skills modules can be found at a special website for this manual (guilford.com/skills- training-manual). They can be printed out for dis- tribution to clients, and modified as necessary to fit a particular setting. A separate, printed volume of handouts and worksheets, ideal for client use, which has its own website where Pts can print their own forms, is also available fo me to use.

DBT as a whole and DBT skills training in particular apply a broad array of cognitive and behavior ther- apy strategies. Like standard cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) programs, DBT emphasizes ongoing assessment and data collection on current behaviors; clear and precise definition of treatment targets; and active collaboration between the therapist and the client, including attention to orienting the client to the intervention and obtaining mutual commit- ment to treatment goals. Many components of DBT (e.g., problem solving, skills training, contingency management, exposure, and cognitive modification) have been prominent in cognitive and behavior therapies for years.

Why I finished this read: this books specific approach to Dr. Linehans evidence base approach, ease of her teaching and my desire to use this material in the prison setting and the behavioral aspect are a good fit with inmates in Prison.

Stars rating: given this manually’s dialectic approach dealt with emotional diregulation and emotional intensity and scientific efficacy and potential growth in other specific cases and how I view the ease of use and it is still in development with high hopes, I gave this a 4 of 5 stars showing how much I liked it.… (altro)

Summary: Marsha Linehan tells the story of her journey from suicidal teenager to world-renowned developer of the life-saving behavioral therapy DBT, using her own struggle to develop life skills for others."This book is a victory on both sides of the page."--Gloria Steinem"Are you one of us?" a patient once asked Marsha Linehan, the world-renowned psychologist who developed dialectical behavior therapy. "Because if you were, it would give all of us so much hope." Over the years, DBT had saved the lives of countless people fighting depression and suicidal thoughts, but Linehan had never revealed that her pioneering work was inspired by her own desperate struggles as a young woman. Only when she received this question did she finally decide to tell her story. In this remarkable and inspiring memoir, Linehan describes how, when she was eighteen years old, she began an abrupt downward spiral from popular teenager to suicidal young woman. After several miserable years in a psychiatric institute, Linehan made a vow that if she could get out of emotional hell, she would try to find a way to help others get out of hell too, and to build a life worth living. She went on to put herself through night school and college, living at the YWCA and often scraping together spare change to buy food. She went on to get her PhD in psychology, specializing in behavior therapy. In the 1980s, she achieved a breakthrough when she developed Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, a therapeutic approach that combines acceptance of the self and ways to change. Linehan included mindfulness as a key component in therapy treatment, along with original and specific life-skill techniques. She says, "You can't think yourself into new ways of acting; you can only act yourself into new ways of thinking." Throughout her extraordinary scientific career, Marsha Linehan remained a woman of deep spirituality. Her powerful and moving story is one of faith and perseverance. Linehan shows, in Building a Life Worth Living, how the principles of DBT really work--and how, using her life skills and techniques, people can build lives worth living.… (altro)

This is not a self-help book but a memoir. Marsha Linehan was the developer of a therapy for suicidal patients called Dialectical Behavior Therapy, or DBT, and was herself a mental patient, institutionalized from ages 18-20 after a sudden breakdown.

She is not a writer. Episodes repeat themselves or hit sudden dead ends. Sadly, electroshock treatment while in the institution wiped out all or nearly all of her memory of her life up to that point, and she relies on others for insights into her childhood. It is hard to make a coherent picture of her in her youth... a popular vivacious "motor-mouthed" girl, but worn down at home by a berating, fault-finding mother.

Through it all she has maintained a strong faith; a devout Catholic through most of her life, now a Zen Master. She has had mystical experiences and seems a very neurologically interesting person.

The snapshots of her life as a pious young girl resonated particularly with me "At one point I decided to sleep without a pillow, as a sacrifice to God." This was so something I would have done. My own sacrifices veered more towards the giving up of foods. It was always Lent for me. I was skipping desserts every other day, then two out of three days... next thing you know I'm a teenager with an eating disorder. But I digress. She also quits a sorority as a sacrifice, and she feels strangely like she should not write about this particular episode, because at the time she promised God she would never tell anyone this real reason why she quit the sorority. She takes her vows seriously. Indeed, while she recognizes that life in a convent was not her calling, she takes vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience as a kind of "lay nun."

DBT, the behavioral therapy she developed, is described in detail. But this is not a self-help book. This is a therapy for the most difficult of cases, people who have engaged in self-harm and are a real threat to themselves.

Her life trajectory - personal, professional, and spiritual - was interesting to follow; I like reading almost any life story, and the writing doesn't have to be great. Here is someone who went through the "hell" of mental illness, and in her words, got herself out determined to help others get out of hell too. She seems to have achieved success and I was happy to see her end in a good place.… (altro)