Dr. Marsha Linehan
Mental health innovator, sufferer, therapist and servant
Trigger warning: self-harm and frequent suicidality are a part of Dr. Marsha Linehan's story
"I was in hell. And I made a vow: when I got out, I'm going to come back and get others out of here."
Biography
Marsha Linehan is a practicing therapist, Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Washington, founder and director of several behavioral training and research clinics, and she is a survivor of Borderline Personality Disorder.
She did go back and help treat others in the hospital where she was confined for over two years, and thousands of others around the world.
Why Marsha Linehan?
I selected Dr. Marsha Linehan because she walked through hell to learn how to help herself and then others with intelligent tough love.
Linehan spent much of her early life confined to a psychiatric hospital including in seclusion—the psychiatric equivalent of solitary confinement.
She burned, cut and made multiple suicide attempts.
She went on to earn her Ph.D. in psychology and developed one of the world's most advanced forms of therapy first for herself and now has helped untold thousands around the world, who suffer from one of the most difficult and complex conditions that much of the psychology profession had written off as untreatable.
Web links
https://behavioraltech.org/about-us/founded-by-marsha/
The Marsha Linehan Institute web page
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/23/health/23lives.html
New York Times Profile after she disclosed her lived experience
Video
https://www.psychotherapy.net/video/dialectical-behavior-therapy-linehan
An example of Marsha Linehan in session showing tough love.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRfLVNR2Hog
Dr. Linehan showing how to explain, motivate, and "sell" a person in the depths of suffering and hell, how to climb out.
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