Marsha M. Linehan

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Lore & Background

Marsha Linehan was born on May 5, 1943, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the third of six children. Her father worked as a vice president at Sunoco Oil, and her Cajun mother was deeply involved in church and volunteer activities. Both parents were described as image-conscious, creating an environment in which Linehan often felt invalidated. She recalled feeling out of place and said her mother made efforts to change her to help her better fit in. Just weeks before her high school graduation, she was hospitalized at the Institute of Living in Hartford, Connecticut, diagnosed with schizophrenia, and admitted as an inpatient. During her more than two-year stay, she began cutting herself, was subjected to electroconvulsive therapy, long periods of seclusion, extreme cold pack therapy, as well as Thorazine and Librium. Linehan described the experience as extremely painful, stating: 'I know what hell feels like, but even now I can’t find words to describe it.' She has said that she feels she actually had borderline personality disorder. At age 20, after leaving the institute, she made a vow to God: 'I would get myself out of hell and that, once I did, I would go back into hell and get others out.'

Linehan graduated cum laude from Loyola University Chicago in 1968 with a B.Sc. in psychology, earned an M.A. in 1970 and a Ph.D. in 1971, both in psychology with clinical training, at Loyola. She completed a doctoral internship at The Suicide Prevention and Crisis Service in Buffalo, New York between 1971 and 1972, and a postdoctoral fellowship in behavior modification at Stony Brook University. In 1977, she was recruited to the University of Washington as an adjunct assistant professor. She received a research grant from the National Institute of Health and began working with hospitals on suicidal patients, developing the study around borderline personality disorder. She spent time at the Shasta Abbey, a Buddhist monastery, and worked with German Catholic Zen teacher Willigis Jäger, where she furthered her understanding of acceptance concepts. Linehan invited a roshi to work with her students and developed a training manual for the core skills of DBT, which she described as 'psychological and behavioral translations of meditation practices from eastern spiritual training.'

Reader's Guide

Marsha M. Linehan's creation of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) represented a major advancement in psychology, particularly for treating individuals with chronic suicidality and borderline personality disorder (BPD) who had not improved with existing methods. DBT combines cognitive restructuring with acceptance, mindfulness, and shaping, and has since been shown helpful for people with other disorders. Linehan's own experience as a patient—hospitalized for over two years, subjected to electroconvulsive therapy and other treatments, and later stating she likely had BPD—informed her work. She founded Behavioral Tech LLC to train mental health professionals in DBT and co-founded the DBT-Linehan Board of Certification (DBT-LBC) to identify providers offering evidence-based DBT. Allen Frances, in the foreword for Linehan's memoir *Building a Life Worth Living*, called her one of the two most influential 'clinical innovators' in mental health, alongside Aaron Beck. Linehan is Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of Washington in Seattle and Director of the Behavioral Research and Therapy Clinics. She is also trained in spiritual direction and serves as an associate Zen teacher in both the Sanbo-Kyodan School in Germany and the Diamond Sangha in the U.S.

Did You Know?

• Linehan was hospitalized at the Institute of Living in Hartford, Connecticut, just weeks before her high school graduation and stayed for over two years.
• During her hospitalization, she was subjected to electroconvulsive therapy, long periods of seclusion, extreme cold pack therapy, and medications including Thorazine and Librium.
• Linehan made a vow to God at age 20 to get herself out of hell and then go back to get others out.
• She graduated cum laude from Loyola University Chicago in 1968 with a B.Sc. in psychology.
• Allen Frances called Linehan one of the two most influential 'clinical innovators' in mental health, the other being Aaron Beck.