Product Description

University of Washington. Diagnosis and Treatment of Mental Disorders Series. Text for clinical psychologists or psychiatrists giving an overview of borderline personality disorder and presenting the author's preferred form of treatment, dialectical behavior therapy (DBT).

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #21885 in Books
• Published on: 1993-05-14
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 558 pages

Review
"These two companion volumes are an impressive summary of Marsha Linehan's work which is increasingly well-known on both sides of the Atlantic....The book is also an encyclopaedia of all problems ever encountered wih borderline patients, offering usually well thought-out therapeutic strategies....I would warmly recommend these books to anyone who is involved in treating borderline patients or is interested in innovative cognitive-behavioural approaches..." --British Journal of Guidance and Counseling

"...If you decide to expand your knowledge of this interesting linkage [between BPD and family violence], this is the only book you will need to read. Marsha Linehan's Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder is the very best work done on the topic to date. It is extraordinarily well written. The examples are well chosen. The documentation is superb...The last section of the book describes specific therapeutic strategies for structuring the treatment plan. Nothing is forgotten, nor left undone in these sections. It is the most exacting and well thought out treatment plan I have ever seen written for any disorder. From this perspective, it is a useful book to read for guidance or insight on treating any mental health disorder...I have tried to find shortcomings with this book. I can find none. It is one of the best pieces of clinical work ever written. No matter what your clinical or research focus of interest, you will gain immensely from reading Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder." --Journal of Family Violence

"....We highly recommend this text and its companion training manual to those interested in treating the borderline patient." --Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic

"This is a very comprehensive book of over 500 pages and is accompanied by a skills training manual based upon the book and theory.....This approach represents a `gold standard' for treatment of this diagnostic category." --Behavior Research and Therapy

"Linehan's book was assigned to our class as first year doctoral students in clinical psychology as we embarked on our very first clinical experiences....we found the book rich in information useful for a wide variety of clinical issues, including interpersonal validation, case conceptualization, problem solving, contingency procedures, skills training, and communication strategies....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

"Presents workable concepts concerning the conduct of psychotherapy that are especially applicable to psychopathological behavior that is unusually resistant to change." --American Journal of Psychotherapy

"Dr. Linehan has published a magnum opus here in presenting an amazingly comprehensive, clearly teachable, and learnable treatment approach to difficult patients....A volume that belongs on every therapist's bookshelf." --Voracious Reader

"This book presents a detailed, cognitive-behavioral, biosocial approach to persons impaired by this disorder....Presents a thorough review of BPD, a good general review of cognitive-behavioral interventions, and the specific application of these basic principles to BPD. The author's approach is based on scientific data, and communicates a true appreciation of the person attempting to cope with BPD...Readers of this journal who are in search of a skills-based approach to BPD that is pragmatic, comprehensive, and easily learned should find this book of interest." --Psychosocial Rehabilitation Journal

"Patients with borderline personality disorder have been traditionally difficult to assess and difficult to treat successfully. This text constructs a new treatment paradigm for this disorder (an important symptom of which is suicidal behavior), combining aspects of behavioral, strategic, psychoanalytic, and other treatment modalities into a clinically proven program...." --BIOLOGICAL ABSTRACTS/RRM
-- Review

....We highly recommend this text and its companion training manual to those interested in treating the borderline patient -- Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic

Dr. Linehan has published a magnum opus here in presenting an amazingly comprehensive, clearly teachable, and learnable treatment approach to difficult patients....A volume that belongs on every therapist's bookshelf -- Voracious Reader

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.

These two companion volumes are an impressive summary of Marsha Linehan's work which is increasingly well-known on both sides of the Atlantic....The book is also an encyclopedia of all problems ever encountered with borderline patients, offering usually well thought-out therapeutic strategies....I would warmly recommend these books to anyone who is involved in treating borderline patients or is interested in innovative cognitive-behavioral approaches... -- British Journal of Guidance and Counseling

This is a very comprehensive book of over 500 pages and is accompanied by a skills training manual based upon the book and theory.....This approach represents a `gold standard' for treatment of this diagnostic category -- Behavior Research and Therapy

Review

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

This is THE MOST EFFECTIVE psychotherapy method
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.

Respectful to BPD individuals. Techniques used pragmatic
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.

Fascinating!
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.