Building a Life Worth Living, Marsha M. Linehan
Building a Life Worth Living, Marsha M. Linehan
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Building a Life Worth Living
A Memoir

Author: Marsha M. Linehan

Narrator: Hillary Huber, Stephen Mendel

Unabridged: 12 hr 19 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/07/2020


Synopsis

Marsha Linehan tells the story of her journey from suicidal teenager to world-renowned developer of the life-saving behavioral therapy DBT, using her own struggle to develop life skills for others.

“This book is a victory on both sides of the page.”—Gloria Steinem

“Are you one of us?” a patient once asked Marsha Linehan, the world-renowned psychologist who developed Dialectical Behavior Therapy. “Because if you were, it would give all of us so much hope.” 

Over the years, DBT had saved the lives of countless people fighting depression and suicidal thoughts, but Linehan had never revealed that her pioneering work was inspired by her own desperate struggles as a young woman. Only when she received this question did she finally decide to tell her story.

In this remarkable and inspiring memoir, Linehan describes how, when she was eighteen years old, she began an abrupt downward spiral from popular teenager to suicidal young woman. After several miserable years in a psychiatric institute, Linehan made a vow that if she could get out of emotional hell, she would try to find a way to help others get out of hell too, and to build a life worth living.  She went on to put herself through night school and college, living at a YWCA and often scraping together spare change to buy food. She went on to get her PhD in psychology, specializing in behavior therapy. In the 1980s, she achieved a breakthrough when she developed Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, a therapeutic approach that combines acceptance of the self and ways to change. Linehan included mindfulness as a key component in therapy treatment, along with original and specific life-skill techniques. She says, "You can't think yourself into new ways of acting; you can only act yourself into new ways of thinking."

Throughout her extraordinary scientific career, Marsha Linehan remained a woman of deep spirituality. Her powerful and moving story is one of faith and perseverance. Linehan shows, in Building a Life Worth Living, how the principles of DBT really work—and how, using her life skills and techniques, people can build lives worth living.

About The Author

Marsha M. Linehan, PhD, ABPP, is the developer of Dialectical Behavior Therapy and a professor of psychology, adjunct professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, and director of the Behavioral Research and Therapy Clinics at the University of Washington. Her primary research interest is in the development and evaluation of evidence-based treatments for populations with high suicide risk and multiple severe mental disorders. Dr. Linehan’s contributions to suicide research and clinical psychology research have been recognized with numerous awards, including the Gold Medal Award for Life Achievement in the Application of Psychology from the American Psychological Foundation, the Scientific Research Award from the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the Career/Lifetime Achievement award from the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, and the Grawemeyer Award for Psychology. In 2018, Dr. Linehan was featured in a special issue of Time magazine, “Great Scientists: The Geniuses and Visionaries Who Transformed Our World.”


Reviews

Goodreads review by Thomas on September 22, 2021

I consider this memoir such a courageous accomplishment from a well-known clinician scientist in the field of Psychology. For those unfamiliar, Marsha Linehan pioneered Dialectical Behavior Therapy, a treatment designed to help those with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) as well as suicidality,......more

Goodreads review by Delany on January 10, 2020

It’s a fine autobiography of and by Marsha Linehan, one of my personal heroes in the field of psychology/psychotherapy. I’m a psychologist who once worked with patients diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (and I grew up with a mother with BPD), so I have much experience with the suffering......more

Goodreads review by Ruth on September 10, 2024

Marsha Linehan single-handedly changed how psychotherapy approached people with traits known as "borderline," a group of people considered not likely to benefit from therapy. In the 1990s she brought in an approach that combined cognitive-behavioral therapy, feminism, and mindfulness practice. I got......more

Goodreads review by Suz on June 08, 2021

This review contains themes of suicide and suicidal ideation. The treatment designed by the author was created to keep people alive. She succeeded. Marsha (yes, I think everyone calls her by her first name) is such a unique lady. I even know the sound of her voice, and what she looks like. She has f......more

Goodreads review by Carrie on January 13, 2023

For anyone interested in the history of clinical psychology and especially DBT, this is a very interesting read. I would also think it would be a useful read to people with suicidal depression and/or BPD (the author recovered from both and developed the most evidence based treatments). The writing i......more


Quotes

“Shocking and heart-wrenching on one end, triumphant on the other, and an inspiration of hope all the way through.”Goop

“In Building a Life Worth Living, Marsha Linehan shares her experience of suicidal depression to help others who may be experiencing this themselves or in someone they love. Since using what happens to us to help others is the final stage of healing, this book is a victory on both sides of the page.”—Gloria Steinem, New York Times bestselling author of My Life on the Road

“A brilliant memoir by one of the greatest pioneers in psychotherapy history . . . Marsha Linehan holds absolutely nothing back, making good on the vow she made as a young woman to escape hell and help others do the same. This book—in its fierce honesty and, for the careful reader, its practical advice—will help anyone who has struggled to build a life worth living.”—Angela Duckworth, New York Times bestselling author of Grit

“To read this book is to understand how a life is built. In dark, there is light. Everything in Marsha Linehan’s life and remarkable memoir uncovers the dark—the hell of the unhappy self and the hell of inadequate help—and brings us into the light, with humor and detail in describing her grappling and growth, and her courage and vision of how to create a treatment for even the most unhappy of us.”—Amy Bloom, New York Times bestselling author of White Houses

“Powerful and intimate . . . Linehan ably guides readers along her roller-coaster life as she conquers the male-dominated world of academia while hiding her physical and emotional scars. . . . Readers looking to overcome their past will find inspiration in this dramatic, heartfelt narrative.”Publishers Weekly

“Practical and engaging . . . Linehan leads readers through her life and details how key moments brought her to develop DBT [Dialectical Behavior Therapy], bringing mindfulness into psychotherapy. Weaving the instructive with the personal, she alternates anecdotes with universal tools for approaching life with a combination of acceptance and motivation to change.”Booklist

“Gripping . . . An inspiring account of healing and helping.”Kirkus Reviews