Marsha Linehan
She built the therapy that pulls people back from the edge.
Founder of Dialectical Behavior Therapy, blending behavioral change with mindfulness and radical acceptance to treat chronic suicidality.
techniques
I made a vow: to get myself out of hell, and once I did, to go back and get others out.
Who they were
Marsha Linehan is an American clinical psychologist who developed Dialectical Behavior Therapy in the late 1970s and 1980s. DBT holds together a dialectic of acceptance and change, weaving behavioral techniques with mindfulness and distress tolerance. Her landmark controlled trials established it as an evidence-based treatment for borderline personality disorder, and it is now used worldwide for suicidality, eating disorders and addiction.
Terms they cared about
Ideas worth knowing
Their techniques
How the work was done
Their big idea
Dialectical Behavior Theory
Lasting change comes from holding acceptance and change together, balanced by mindfulness and skills.
The approach they founded
Dialectical Behavior Therapy
Holds acceptance and change together — teaching mindfulness, riding out distress, and steadying intense emotions.
Questions in their spirit
What they’d ask you
Sit with one. Answer online, or in the app.
Carry the idea forward
Linehan — What they’d ask you
Psipas asks you one small, honest question at a time — and builds the picture from your answers.