Building a Life Worth Living

'This book is a victory on both sides of the page' Gloria Steinem When Marsha Linehan was eighteen years old, she began an abrupt downward spiral from popular teenager to suicidal young woman. After several miserable years in a psychiatric institute, Linehan made a vow: if she could get out of emotional hell, she would try to find a way to help others do the same. Linehan would put herself through medical school, scraping together spare change for food and eventually achieving her PhD in behavioural science. Decades of advocating for herself within a healthcare system with no framework for what she was experiencing culminated in Linehan developing DBT, a pioneering, life-saving therapeutic approach that combines acceptance of the self and ways to change. Throughout her extraordinary scientific career, Marsha Linehan remained a deeply spiritual woman, and her powerful and inspiring story is one of faith and perseverance. Now, in her own words, Linehan shows how the principles of DBT really work— and how, using her life skills and techniques, people can build lives worth living.