Treating Borderline Personality Disorder The Dialectical Approach

An important component of DBT is the use of skills training to help manage the extreme beliefs, actions, and attitudes that form the criteria for borderline personality disorder. In actual therapy sessions, the video shows Dr. Linehan teaching patients the use of such skills as mindfulness, distress tolerance, interpersonal effectiveness, and emotional regulation. Vividly depicting the various stages of treatment, this program shows how DBT helps clients decrease negative behaviors and work toward personal goals. Designed for therapists, the video is also suitable for use in client and family education. In an especially compelling feature, the video includes live interview sessions between Dr. Linehan and Allen J. Frances, Chairman of the DSM-IV Task Force. In these probing dialogues, Dr. Frances asks Dr. Linehan the nuts-and-bolts questions all clinicians want answered about how DBT works and what its advantages are over other therapies.

Marsha M. Linehan, PhD, is Professor of Psychology and Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington. She is also Director of the Behavioral Research and Therapy Clinics, a consortium of research projects developing new treatments and evaluating their efficacy for severely disordered and multidiagnostic populations. She has an ongoing clinical practice and is active in clinical consultation, supervision, and training of mental health professionals internationally.