For the average clinician, clinic, or inpatient facility, individuals
with borderline personality disorder often represent the most difficult
and insoluble cases. The first volume to provide strategies proven
effective in controlled clinical trials, this book is a comprehensive,
integrated approach to therapy with this population. Marsha Linehan
presents specific guidelines that creatively combine the best elements
of behavioral, psychoanalytic, strategic, and other commonly employed
modalities. A clinical innovator, she has analyzed the aspects of
borderline into their component parts and developed a systematized
approach to each of them. The first section of the book presents an
overview of the disorder and lays out a theoretical framework to guide
the therapy. The second describes in detail how to assess borderline
patients and how to organize and prioritize treatment goals and
behavioral targets. The core of the treatment is the balance of
acceptance and change strategies, both within each therapy interaction
and over time. For problem solving with borderline personality disorder,
the book provides specific strategies for contingency management,
exposure, cognitive modification, and skills training. The last
component is further elucidated in the companion Skills Training Manual,
which programmatically details procedures and includes client handouts
for step-by-step implementation. Finally, to enhance interpersonal
communication, Dr. Linehan presents three case management sets:
consultation to the patient, environmental intervention, and
consultation to the therapist. Addressing the most stressful patient
behaviors that clinicians encounter, the book includes a step-by-step
outlinefor assessing suicide risk, managing suicide threats, and working
with chronic suicidal behavior. Integrative approaches for such specific
problems as crises, noncompliance, and breakdowns in the therapeutic
relationship are also discussed. Lucidly detailing effective techniques
