Part of me wanted her to take a bit of a stronger anti-stigma stance, though perhaps she already did her part by sharing her experience. I intend the commentary in this paragraph less as a critique of this memoir than as a general statement: you shouldn’t have to be a tenured professor at the end of your career (not to mention that she’s white) to be able to be open about your experiences with mental illness. As someone who’s faced mental health issues and is a scientist and a clinician, I’m thankful to Marsha for her sharing, because she shows that struggling with mental health doesn’t make you unfit for research or practice – rather, it can enhance your empathy and your understanding of what you study, especially if you’re self-aware and work through your issues. I hope that the field practices enhanced compassion and eliminates stigma for those who faced or face mental illness, and not just for successful white scholars either.

Powerful and intimate . . .Linehan ably guides readers along her roller-coaster life as she conquers the male-dominated world of academia while hiding her physical and emotional scars. . . . Readers looking to overcome their past will find inspiration in this dramatic, heartfeltnarrative.” — Publishers WeeklyThey are: temperature manipulation, intense exercise, paced breathing, and paired muscle relaxation. (Okay, so there are two P skills, which doesn’t quite fit the acronym.) The goal of TIP skills is to change body chemistry” A lot of people were at the institute to hear me talk that June day. There were people from all around the world who had been trained in the therapy, people who knew me or knew of my research, former students and colleagues, my family. I’d given talks about DBT many, many times before. When I did, I usually titled the talk “DBT: Where We Were, Where We Are, and Where We Are Going.” I would describe how I had developed the therapy through several years of exploratory research, often involving trial and error. I would describe its impact on suicidal people, what other conditions it was proving to be beneficial for, and so on. Do not believe that he who seeks to comfort you lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words that sometimes do you good. His life has much difficulty and sadness….Were it otherwise he would never have been able to find those words.” What was most frustrating was that it seemed like all of her greatest turning points or breakthroughs in her life were some sort of random mystical or religious experience that had nothing to do with therapy. For example, she suddenly one day just decided to make a vow to God to help others out of hell, and that was what made her snap out of her suicidality. Or one day she just randomly shouted to herself that she loved herself for no reason. She would describe them without anything leading up to these events and no explanation as to why they happened. As someone living with BPD, these experiences are highly unrelatable and also make me wonder whether recovery simply comes down to random mystical experiences. We have a list to help you get started on creating your life worth living. It’s only two steps long. STEP 1: FIGURE OUT WHAT’S WORTH LIVING FOR. STEP 2: DO THAT.

Marsha survived the kind of descent into hell that is characteristic of these patients, but/and she found her way out and vowed to use her life to help bring others out of that same hell. And she fulfilled her vow with the development of the first truly effective therapeutic method for these patients. The components of the interventions she uses are designed to allow the patients to build for themselves, with the help of a well-trained therapist, a life worth living. Research clearly indicates that her method works. learning how to tolerate and accept distress is part of that general change toward self-improvement.” This review contains themes of suicide and suicidal ideation. The treatment designed by the author was created to keep people alive. She succeeded. and then read – How to begin dreaming: Building a life worth living in DBT (Part 3) Ready to work on creating YOUR life worth living? 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 a 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."

STEP 2: DO THAT.

The first time you practice contemplation, you’ll only experience a darkness, like a cloud of unknowing,” writes the anonymous author of the book by that name, The Cloud of Unknowing” Remembering what you’re working towards; your goals and your DREAMS will keep you moving forward when you want to run away. It helps you and your therapist know what to prioritize