Dialectical Behaviour Therapy

[Celebration]

In case anyone thinks I am against any kind of psychotherapy, I thought I would post this. I would love to know if anyone has any experience with dialectical behavior therapy? Fortunately nobody close to me currently has any need for any type of therapy, but I think I would try this form if I needed it. The book about it got some one stars and five stars. However, the people who had worked with DBT gave it five stars. Here is an example of an Amazon review from a practitioner-- (I am not going to order the book because I already have enough to read. Just wanted to know if anyone here has experience with this type of therapy.)

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/0898621836/ref=cm_cr_dp_pt/103-6570642-1143015?%5Fencoding=UTF8&n=283155&s=books

91 of 96 people found the following review helpful:

This is THE MOST EFFECTIVE psychotherapy method, September 24, 2001
Reviewer: "psychiatry" (CA USA) - See all my reviews
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.

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There is lots of information on the 'net about this form of therapy. However, in certain locations it might be difficult to locate a practitioner. I love the fact that the therapists have to be well centered to practice it. There is a lot of "mindfulness" in it, and also specific teaching of skills for situations. Naysayers on Amazon don't have any experience with this technique and lambast it for sounding "new agey."

[BrklynLiberal]

1. Very interesting. Thanks for posting.

[opihimoimoi]

2. Someone should read the damn thing to BUSH

[Sonicmedusa]

3. I am familar with it

Having both read the book and studied the workbook. Both are directed to practioners, not the general public.

Linehan wrote the book for the treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder, but the therapy has proven useful for numerous disorders.

DBT is generally a set of daily living skills that are taught in classes, as opposed to a one-on-one therapy situation. If you are not a clinician, I doubt the book would be of much use. You may get some benefit from the workbook, which is a series of mostly written exercises and skills that are taught in a DBT class.

You are correct about the difficulty in finding a practioner or a DBT class, though I do think it is getting a bit more known.

God bless Linehan.

[NMMNG]

4. I'm not very familiar with it

It does sound intriguing however as we deal with a good number of individuals with BPD and other challenging mental health issues at work. I highly doubt, however, that their therapists utilize it. :-(