I’ve just been reading this article about Marsha Linehan’s experience with the psychiatric system in the 1960s, and how that inspired her to develop dialectical behaviour therapy.
There’s still no way I’m going anywhere near DBT, despite my psychiatrist’s occasional attempts to sign me up for it. Perhaps my vision is just coloured by all the horror stories I’ve heard about needy and guilt-tripping DBT practitioners. By which I mean the therapists, not the patients.
Or maybe I just don’t have BPD even though I’m female! Now isn’t that a newsworthy concept?
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Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: | borderline personality disorder, DBT, marsha linehan, mental illness
Yeah I saw that article…even so, I still think her DBT skills manual book is patronising.
How very dare you imply that “watch soap operas and be glad it’s not you suffering” is anything other than a truly amazing piece of wisdom!!!
Go and sit in the lobby of a beautiful old hotel until you’ve changed your attitude.
HAHAHAHA. *Likes*.
To be honest I can’t say I was all that surprised – it’s a therapy which not only justifies, but encourages therapists to act in a way that would suggest they have a much more severe PD than their clients, and the general level of of egoism that She can talk for everyone with that diagnosis about why they’re like that, and how they can fix themselves…
Personally I can see a lot of projection of disdain, which I suspect comes from her dislike of herself, being put on vulnerable young ladies. The DBT therapist I met told me that “all you lot self harm for the same reason” (that would be attention by the way, which is she stated that I could never be allowed to have a “positive, helping relationship” because that would lead to more self harm – that is such complete and utter BS), and this seems to be how DBT teaches therapists to behave. It’s inherent in the “non-judging” attitude which is designed to punish the client and allow the therapist to feel justified in their anger about the client. It justifies black and white thinking about the client and it justifies treating the client in a way that supposedly needs “fixing” in that client.
She (or at least the DBT therapists that worship her) clearly feel she’s the spokesperson of all women who have ever self harmed ever and I’m really not surprised that this is because she’s done it herself – I know plenty of people with that sort of attitude: “I was depressed once so I know how everyone who’s ever had feels”. Or “When I was depressed I took fish oils and got better so everyone with depression should take fish oils and then they’d get better too.” (ad nauseum)
I have no more respect for her now, than I did before she revealed this information. And I suspect she only did it to get more attention on DBT and to legitimise her claims to being the biggest expert out there (Look at Kay Jamison-Redfield and bipolar for a comparison).
I wouldn’t mind so much if she saw it as one possible way of helping people, it’s the attitude that if you’re female and self-harm you have BPD and therefore DBT is the one and only answer, and the little crusade by DBT therapists to ensure that it’s all that is offered in those circumstances.
It is not a benign response, I have seen it do more harm than good especially when it’s been applied across the board without looking into things. Without bothering to try and understand a person as an individual, because you already have a some neat little paragraphs covering the whys and wherefores, so you don’t need to bother actually talking to the horrible client.
It teaches people not to self-harm, not because the drivers for that harm are dealt with, not because an attempt to improve the clients life is brought about, not even by attempting to understand the self-harm, or by the clients desire to stop. It teaches people first and foremost that it is a bad thing that will make the therapist angry. In essence It turns the therapist into a parent, and the exact type of parent which Marsha Linehan claims creates BPD…
Sorry for the rant, but I’ve been so badly damaged by that DBT therapist in the 4 so-called “assessment” appointments that I curse Marsha Linehan for ever inventing it. I’ve also seen how much damage the therapy has done to other people. Real damage.
Take care,
Differently
PS sorry for abusing your comments box…
That’s an interesting view point and I agree with a lot of it- that it even more gives her that authority to be right up there as the top BPD expert, because she’s been through it, so she MUST have the answer (ie. DBT) that will cure all people with BPD.
I’m glad I’m not the only one with these views. I’ve heard people say that they have all this respect for her now that she’s revealed she used to have BPD herself, but I’m one who has not grown in respect for Linehan. I’ve been given handouts from her DBT skills manual book and what I can’t help thinking is ‘If she’s supposedly been through it, why why why did she still come up with something so patronising?!’
No need to apologize, I pretty much agree with everything you just said about DBT and the relationship it wants between the patient and the therapist. I actually feel pretty skeeved by everything I’ve read about it — DBT therapists need to learn appropriate boundaries and their attitude towards self-harm leaves a lot to be desired.
I also hated the quote from the patient in the news article. Are you ~one of us~ Marsha? Shit, I don’t care if she’s ~one of us~. She’s a therapist, not a fucking cult leader. I don’t know, maybe that kind of oversharing personal info dynamic works for Linehan and her patients but I have no interest whatsoever in the personal life of the mental health professionals who treat me, and wish they’d just do their job without projecting their issues all over the rest of us. I cannot imagine EVER asking my psychiatrist if he’s ~one of us~, put it that way.
The “are you one of us” quote shows the exact attitude Linehan has. I don’t consider myself BPD, but nor do I consider myself a walking symptom cluster.
Actually it reminds me of a comment recently made by a lecturer at the uni, who stated that hospital might be a bad thing because it meant that “they only hang out and talk with their own kind”… having mental health problems doesn’t make us a separate species and I know plenty of people with similar diagnoses to my own (non-existent one) and we share nothing in common, beyond the mh system…
There isn’t a “them” or an “us” (or at least there shouldn’t be) and therefore she doesn’t need to try to be one of “us”.
And I totally agree with – it’s wholly inappropriate for her to be sharing her history with her clients, she’s supposed to be there for her clients not the other way around, the only exception would be if she was working in peer-support (a la hearing voices) she is not. And personally if someone disclosed to me, not only would I think they lacked any concept of professional boundaries or the meaning of the therapeutic relationship and I would also feel completely unable to talk to them about my own problems.
But again, she’s sat there going “I was like you, I got better, aren’t I awesome, please worship me.” and I suspect that the sting in the tail will be “I got better, you didn’t, you’re a failure, you’re not as good as me.” especially if her treatment fails to bring about the goals she’s pre-dictated in the workbook…
Wow I have a lot of anger… but hey I hate seeing people being made to feel like crap, or being used to make therapists feel good about themselves, or just plain being damaged more on top of the problems they already experience…
Take care,
Differently
A psychologist I used to see until recently, told me I have BPD. But the only reason I think she said that, was because she wanted me to go into a DBT program… that she was the founder of. Just wanting to get numbers.
Actually a friend of mine did go into the DBT program that psychologist was running, and it did her more harm than good. I’m not saying DBT is bad as a whole, but I don’t think it works for everyone.
And I don’t have BPD.
The really shocking truth is that no-one has BPD, it’s a hate label, possibly the most pejorative in the DSM and it doesn’t exist. It’s pure misogyny sold as science. Google Paula Caplan, Clare Shaw, Louise Pembroke, Dana Becker, Gilian Proctor. It’s a bullshit psychiatric diagnosis that has no more validity than your horoscope. Pain is real, labels are utter bias and subjective judgemental tags.
Linehan has cornered a market and is making a fortune out of rolling out this pernicious, judgemental, silencing nonsense. She has the need to be accepted and validated and unfortunately she has done this by going out of her way to become part of an establishment that brutalised her and one in which she would have felt extremely frightened and misunderstood. Good little Martha, she’s so regulated now. It’s actually very sad in a way.
The very fact that she has built a life and a career out of validating pejorative, unscientific smear labels like BPD is in and of itself slightly grotesque.
As Dana Becker says “the distress is real, the diagnosis is fiction.”
Radical Acceptance and Mindfulness were chosen by her to include in her ‘therapy’ as they were the up and coming thing in the field at the time. Survivors often find DBT horrifically invalidating and offensive. It’s often delivered in a highly controlled and power differentialed environment. It’s the ultimate insult to anyone who’s suffering. The ultimate “we know better by virtue of the fact that we’re not in the distreSs you currently are.”
I think it has the capacity to radically damage people and train them into a self policing state of constant monitoring and checking. Welcome to the Borg!
Trust your gut, DBT may sound on first look like a light fluffy warm thing, but scratch the surface and it’s very obviously a system in which non compliance is punished and ‘boundaries’ are enforced which actually mean rejecting, manipulating and controlling peoples behavior and how they express themselves, particularly in distress.
It has been labelled ‘doing bollocks therapy’ or ‘diabolical behaviour therapy’ by survivor activist Louise Pembroke. It compunds the idea that there’s something inherently wrong with the person thats receiving it and that they need to be taught how to be diferent.
It may be wrapped up in a nice shiny bow but its used to bully, coerice and hoard people into programmes that prevent them from clogging up the mental health system with distress that is legitimate but that they dont want to hear about.
Spent a liftime being told there was something wrong with you? DBT will confirm this subtly but powerfully by being complicit in the notion that you are ‘dysregulated’ and need to learn new ‘skills’.Yuck. It’ll be something else in 20 years time.
People need to fight back, this is not a therapy, it demands ‘behavioural modification’ but won’t do anything to address the very real distress that many people feel and that deserves a respectful space in which the person can be accepted and supported without coercion.
Linehan’s outing was not necessarily of her own choosing. It makes it even more tragic that she would inflict this on others having suffered herself. I believe that she really does think she’s helping and if it works for you go for it.
However if it doesn’t help or you simply arent’ interested and want choices in the help or support you receive then it’s simply not good enough that this is force fed to people who are often feeling much too vulnerable to refuse it even thought it’s not what they want. Sound familiar? Don’t drink the cool aid. Say no to the nun.