Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) has quickly become a treatment of choice for individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD), suicidal behavior, non-suicidal self injury, and other complicated psychiatric conditions. However, there are very few well-trained DBT practitioners, limited opportunities for training, and a dearth of easily accessible reading material. Becoming proficient in fully adherent DBT requires intensive training and years of experience. Fortunately, many DBT principles and procedures can be readily adapted for therapists conducting supportive, psychodynamic, and even cognitive behavioral treatments.

The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Primer fulfills a great demand for an easy to read, simplified translation of the complexities of DBT. The authors provide a clear, comprehensive summary of DBT principles and techniques illustrated with rich clinical vignettes. Through addressing the top ten questions clinicians ask about working with individuals who have BPD, the authors encourage a conversion to the "DBT way of thinking" about psychotherapy as well as BPD. Through personal discussion of their experience, they share how they have come to understand the emotional and behavioral world of individuals with severe difficulty with emotion regulation. Their orientation is that, in order to maintain these individuals in treatment, to reduce symptoms, and to increase capacity for positive life experience, therapists need to rethink their assumptions and interpretations and take on more responsibility for treatment failure. The dialectic worldview, when applied to the treatment of BPD, provides therapists with a viable alternative theoretical approach. The authors take pains to illustrate how the dialectic philosophy underlies each DBT intervention and how integral this way of thinking is to the effective practice of DBT.

This book is the ideal guide to DBT for clinicians at all levels of experience.

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Psychodynamic Formulation
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Psychodynamic Psychotherapy: A Clinical Manual
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