Description
Filled with vivid clinical vignettes and step-by-step descriptions, this book demonstrates the nuts and bolts of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT). DBT is expressly designed for–and shown to be effective with–clients with serious, multiple problems and a history of treatment failure. The book provides an accessible introduction to DBT while enabling therapists of any orientation to integrate elements of this evidence-based approach into their work with emotionally dysregulated clients. Experienced DBT clinician and trainer Kelly Koerner clearly explains how to formulate individual cases; prioritize treatment goals; and implement a skillfully orchestrated blend of behavioral change strategies, validation strategies, and dialectical strategies.
See also Dialectical Behavior Therapy in Clinical Practice, Second Edition: Applications across Disorders and Settings, edited by Linda A. Dimeff, Shireen L. Rizvi, and Kelly Koerner, which presents exemplary DBT programs for specific clinical problems and populations.
Great book, I just wish the description let you know the book and typeface are so small.
I haven’t finished the book but it is very in depth and I find it to be a great book to have as I’m training to be a DBT therapist. I highly recommend!
This book is awesome for the DBT therapist. It provides practical and helpful advice sanctioned by Marsha that goes beyond the regular treatment manual and workbook. It also talks about using some of the tricky techniques of DBT – namely irreverence. I would recommend it for any therapist looking to hone their DBT skills and understanding of how DBT should work from the creators. That said, it helps understand how to make the evidence-based practice work for different client presentations and adapt your practice while still staying within the evidence-based bounds.
I have not finished reading this book, so this is tentative, but I am not likely to change what I will write here.
I have read other books about DBT, and other books about treatment of borderline personality disorder. The reason for my interest (and it requires a lot of interest to read through these technical books as I am not a trained psychotherapist) is that I have a friend eho was 15 when I met her, who suffers from BPD. Really suffers! And she is an orphan, often homeless, and suffers from multiple diagnoses. I was the first to recognize she suffers from BPD after about six months, and it has taken social service agencies almost seven years to realize this is one of her problems. So almost seven years have been wasted with pharmacotherapy that is ineffective, and sort-term palliative therapy that is also pretty much ineffective. Hence my interest in helping her, even without professional qualifications.
For example, I have read Marsha Linehan’s book, Cognitive Behavioral Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder. I consider it a bible for this kind of thing. Also her Skills Training book. I have not been able to do much with skills training, because I would need more training myself to actually do it. I have also watched a lot of the DVDs and listened to some of the CDs offered by Behavioral Tech. All these have been very helpful to me and, I hope, to my friend.
I have also read John Gunderson’s Borderline Personality Disorder — A Clinical guide, first edition and am part way through the second edition. This book studies DBT and several other ways of treating BPD. It has a broader perspective than Marsha Linehan’s book, but less depth. It helps fill in the gaps for me.
There are many other books about DBT that I found less helpful and will not bother with here.
To the present book by Kelly Koerner. I am finding this very useful as it provides a different perspective of DBT, filling in gaps from my other reading. While not quite like looking through the one-way window into a room where Marsha Linehan is treating a patient, it works in a similar way. (You can actually get DVDs that do that in a semi-staged way, from Behavioral Tech, but they are quite expensive: one 4 DVD set is around $250). This is really quite important for me. I mean I would actually sign up for her courses and workshops, but to do that seems to require my being a practicing therapist, and am not. Also the costs are high enough that I could not really justify that since I have no intention to get a license and practice this. Even if I could get a license, just knowing one BPD sufferer is so difficult, I could not bear to have more than one in my life.
Another treatment is known as Mentalization Based Treatment (MBT), propounded by Anthony Batemen and Peter Fonagy, and is described in their books. This is less well known than DBT. This method has also been subjected to randomized controlled studies and found to be effective. But not as many as has DBT. This is a fascinating field of study, but it requires much more study and work than I would ever have imagined.
This is the only therapy that helped me get out of my depression. Besides the book, I took 2 classes at 2 different
facilities. It is a very upbeat and technical way of turning your life around. The techniques are very common sense.
I believe it should be used in the classroom to all teens especially girls, who worry about peer pressure. Thanks
Marcia for your courage to develop this therapy for those of us that needed something uplifting in our state of
depression.