"...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

"Marsha Linehan's tremendously in-depth and informative book and its companion skills-training manual offer a needed guide to the cognitive-behavioral treatment of borderline personality disorder....Her method has become so widely used by clinicians that the experts in psychosocial treatments consider it one of the best....Marsha Linehan's methods are highly eclectic because they are empirically based; they have been fashioned to fit what works best for borderline patients." --Lester Luborsky, Ph.D.

"Linehan is one of our most creative and articulate clinicians....As a true scientist-professional, she has not only been innovating in the treatment of one of the most daunting of disorders--borderline personality--but has successfully subjected her ideas to controlled empirical scrutiny." --Gerald Davison, Ph.D., University of Southern California

"Dr. Linehan's approach is sensible, pragmatic, and effective. Most importantly, it offers the therapist a humane and sensitive perspective on persons with Borderline Personality Disorder. In short, it treats both the therapist and the client in a fashion that produces results." --Mark Ciocca, Ph.D., Central New Hampshire Community Mental Health Center

"Linehan is a brilliant, compassionate, and rigorous therapist for borderline patients. What's more, and what is most unusual for master therapists, she has proven its efficacy in published randomized, controlled trials. What is fortuitous for borderline patients and their therapists is that she has painstakingly crafted a wise book and user-friendly manual well grounded in principle, detailed in its strategies, and exportable to a wide range of treatment settings.

Our hospital has applied Linehan's treatment in several settings over the past five years: acute inpatient, extended inpatient, day treatment, and outpatient. We have primarily worked with borderline clients, but have also had success with some schizophrenics. Patients, families, and staff have received this new approach with enthusiasm; it makes common sense to them and feels very practical. It's a treatment that integrates well with biological, rehabilitative, most psychodynamic, and family treatment modes, and parallels treatments for eating disorders, substance abuse, and PTSD from childhood abuse....Linehan has set a high standard of treatment for borderlines in the 1990s; the patients will be the ultimate beneficiaries." --Charles R. Swenson, M.D., New York Hospital, Westchester Division

Marsha M. Linehan, PhD, ABPP, is Professor of Psychology and Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington, Seattle, and Director of the Behavioral Research and Therapy Clinics there. She is founder of the Marie Institute of Behavioral Technology and the company Behavioral Tech, LLC. The recipient of numerous awards for her distinguished clinical and research contributions, Dr. Linehan has served as president (2007) of the Society of Clinical Psychology, Division 12 of the American Psychological Association.

1. Borderline Personality Disorder: Concepts, Controversies, and Definitions.

2. Dialectical and Biosocial Underpinnings of Treatment.

3. Behavioral Patterns: Dialectical Dilemmas in the Treatment of Borderline Patients.

II. TREATMENT OVERVIEW AND GOALS.

4. Overview of Treatment: Targets, Strategies, and Assumptions in a Nutshell.

5. Behavioral Targets in Treatment: Behaviors to Increase and Decrease.

6. Structuring Treatment Around Target Behaviors: Who Treats What and When.

III. BASIC TREATMENT STRATEGIES.

7. Dialectical Treatment Strategies.

8. Core Strategies: Part I. Validation.

9. Core Strategies: Part II. Problem Solving.

10. Change Procedures: Part I. Contingency Procedures (Managing Contingencies and Observing Limits.

11. Change Procedures: Part II. Skill Training, Exposure, Cognitive Modification.

12. Stylistic Strategies: Balancing Communication.

13. Case Management Strategies: Interacting with the Community.

IV. STRATEGIES FOR SPECIFIC TASKS.

14. Structural Strategies.

15. Special Treatment Strategies.