Skills Training Manual for Treating Borderline Personality Disorder Description:

Skills Training Manual for Treating Borderline Personality Disorder review:
5 stars (this is partner to successful treatment) - If you have been diagnosed a BPD this is your companion to adequate treatment.Keep in mind this book is not to be used alone. Once a DBT specialist is in your life this book becomes 50% treatment.The cornerstone to functioning and the reference you can forever use when treated for BPD it is my belief and Dr. Linehan's that you can live a normal life. Discard I hate u don't leave me and seek out this treatment.Then this book will someday be reviewed by u.
5 stars (Finding What Works) - Knowing how to access a place inside to relieve symptoms of long standing illness is pure genius, and this book is the road map to spiritual identification and release of problems, just by learning how to relax and let the spirit do it's job. I love it.
4 stars (Wouldn't it be nice.....) - That's the beginning of an old Beach Boys' song and maybe a good response to the fine research and development of what is called "dialectical behavioral therapy." It's a fine paradigm and tacitly acknowledges that effective therapy is not a one hour a week process, but an on-going one with multi-modal tasks and treatments, and ideally with a therapy team. This book is a great handbook, but NASA publishes excellent handbooks on operating space vehicles: but it doesn't do much good if you can't afford a launchpad (more on this metaphor in a moment). The book clearly lays out the task of the therapist and client. The client should do homework assignments, self-monitoring, reflection, etc. That is all fine and good if one has a research grant and a "captive audience" so to speak, but in the real world, how many people could adhere to such a regimen. As insurance company allowances for mental health severely limit length of treatment and quality of treatment, and with the average American's work week having expanded ten hours per week since the early 1980's (see "The Future of Success"-Robert Reich), who are the clients that will truly benefit from a comprehensive treatment plan. Blue Cross, for example, limits "financing" of mental health treatment to 20 sessions per year TOTAL,( meaning counseling, group therapy, psychopharmacology, etc.) and that's only if you see a counselor in their network (and how many experienced therapists are going to accept their reimbursement schedules)? Those 20 sessions, would be used up in a couple of months maximum. Compare this to the intensive year-long regiment of DBT. Once again, the psychology community is clueless about the economics of American mental health. But don't take it from me: here is what Jerold Kreisman (author of the groundbreaking book "I hate you don't leave me") said in his recent "Sometimes I act Crazy": "Some studies have denmonstrated that DBT is not superior to standard care therapy in achieving improvement in depression and anger symptoms...Whether symptom improvement can be sustained for significant periods after treatment termination is not established..." And perhaps most unsettling, "Despite strong inferences that specialized programs for BPD offer superior and cost-effective treatment, current financial contraints on the treatment of psychiatric disorders in this country inhibit optimal therapeutic approaches." Please don't punish the messenger. But these observations are not exactly surprising. So if you are middle class, working class, working poor, poor, have typical insurance, no insurance, probably the only way to get the treatment you need is to get committed: this is in the true spirit of Catch-22ism.