Dialectical Behavior Therapy Is Not Always The Most Effective Treatment For Borderline Personality Disorder
Different strokes for different folks
Introduction
In the psychiatric community, borderline personality disorder (BPD) and dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) tend to be spoken in the same breath. Diagnosed with BPD? Then you need to enter DBT treatment. I was one of those individuals for whom DBT was the first-line treatment when I was diagnosed with BPD in 1990, following my second suicide attempt.
According to the National Education Alliance for Borderline Personality Disorder (NEABPD), “BPD can be defined as a serious mental illness that centers on the inability to manage emotions effectively. The disorder occurs in the context of relationships: sometimes all relationships are affected, sometimes only one.”
The NEABDP states that “BPD usually begins during adolescence or early adulthood.” However, three decades ago, I was not diagnosed until I was twenty-nine years old.
Diagnosis
At the time I was diagnosed, Marsha Linehan, Ph.D., a psychologist from The University of Washington had developed a new treatment designed to treat patients who had high rates of suicide attempts. The innovative…
