Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is a method for treating those people who have Bipolar Disorder or Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) that combines both traditional Western and non-traditional Eastern psychological concepts. The method was developed by University of Washington psychological researcher Marsha M. Linehan and she has experienced considerable success whenever implementing her plan of therapy.

Those with BPD have an extremely difficult time coping with any crises that may occur in their lives and they are also highly emotionally unstable. BPD is thus somewhat similar to Bipolar Disorder but the extremes of emotion experienced by BPD sufferers don’t usually last as long as those of manic-depressives. Linehan’s breakthrough came when she realized that BPD sufferers were all invalidated as children and that it is this self-destructive behavioral pattern that should be changed instead of the crises being removed.

There are two parts to DBT and both improve a patient’s mental health: group therapy and the one-on-one consultations between a BPD sufferer and their therapist. These methods are also used for bipolar patients. The group therapy sessions concentrate on teaching the patient four very specific skill sets, which are: core mindfulness skills, distress tolerance skills, emotion regulation skills and interpersonal effectiveness skills.