Dialectical Behavior Therapy in Private Practice

"As director of an outpatient mental health clinic I found this book to be quite informative in providing a good understanding of DBT in general, particularly for those who have not worked with it before. It was easy to understand, yet scholarly. I especially appreciated the specific examples of how it is applied in the clinical setting for different diagnosis and symptoms to get a clearer picture of it's many applications. I have highly recommended this book to the therapists at my clinic and encourage them to use DBT in their therapeutic interventions, not just with personalaity disorders, but with any diagnosis that has elements of anxiety, depression. Personally, I believe DBT provides a more wholistic approach to mental health interventions i.e. working with both mind and emotions. The book Dialectical Behavior Therapy in Private Practice, helps therapists to develop better therapeutic alliances and interventions as well as helping the consumer to cooperate more effectively in their own recovery. "
~ Written on 2007-12-14

"I am not a fan of this author's other book, "Depressed and Anxious..." which I found to be much too wordy and not very focused.

This book, in contrast, is very clear, concise, and dense with insights. As a participant in DBT therapy, it can be hard to grasp the "meta meaning" of the DBT modules. This text gives me a better framework for understanding the skills, and clarifies very well some of the concepts.

It's interesting that the majority of DBT participants know the acronym DBT, and most probably know that it stands for Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. However, I don't think that most of the participants know what "dialectical" means.

I knew vaguely (after attending DBT a few times) that it was a kind of tensions of opposites, but I didn't really know very well what that meant in practical terms that would help me identify them in my life. One of the nice features of this book is that it has tables that illustrate what the dialectics are for different client categories (diagnoses, problem behaviors) that helped me understand a vague topic very clearly in such a way that I can better identify the dialectics in my life and seek to "heal" them, if that would improve things (some dialectics are OK, some do not serve one well, and that may be a matter of personal choice but there is more _choice_ involved when one can identify them).

These are my initial impressions of the book which I may update as I read it in more depth.

I would look forward to another skills-based workbook from this author for the clients of DBT written in a clear, concise style such as this book (of course, in more simplified language because of the different audience).

I think this book succeeds at being "A Practical and Comprehensive Guide" (which is the subtitle).


Update:

I have had more time to read this book, and the more that I have gotten into it the more useful it has become. It's possible that I am a unique DBT client that can get a better perspective on DBT reading a book targeted towards providers. I love the conciseness, and in my opinion it's the perfect balance between economy of words and getting the ideas across.

In addition, both the slides and the worksheets are superb, have added to my understanding of the modules, and greatly exceed my expectations. They are well designed, well presented, and very useful. I haven't been this excited about a DBT book since Marsha Linehan's Skills Training Manual.

Thomas Marra: I gave a low review to one of your other books, and actually feel guilty for it even though it reflects my true feelings (hmm, is there a dialectic there?). Anyway, kudos for a job well done. I give this 6 stars (******) which should help average out my other rating :-)"
~ Written on 2007-03-16

"As long as the reader recognizes that Marra is not writing a book about protocol DBT, his ideas are a just fine adjunct to the library. The clinician needs to be ready to recognize the differences and make informed choices."
~ Written on 2006-10-29

"this book, in my opinion, is more practical than many other resources available for treating borderline personality disorder. for the most part, it is written at a level that the majority of individuals with bpd can understand. i think that the exercises are well thought out and, based on feedback, seem to be quite helpful for patients. it is respectful to the individual yet challenging. while i didn't find everything i needed - it wasn't exhaustive - i found most everything, almost all exercises were beneficial. the modification of linehan's intensive dbt (that is, weekly individual AND lengthy group sessions) to the private practice environment regulated by managed care (that is, limited #s of sessions) is a challenging hurtle that begins to be chiseled away in this book. for any behavioral / mental health professional frustrated with the difficulties encountered in helping folks with bpd, this book is a very good resource. i recommend that professionals peruse it before buying it just to make sure they like it, as i did. it's different than most self-help books for folks with bpd, and i think that, while individuals with bpd may benefit from most of this book, it is best if augmented with individual and group therapy. "
~ Written on 2006-07-16

"Practical and useful tools to use in the therapeutic situation."
~ Written on 2005-09-29