Building a Life Worth Living

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It is also disconcerting that there are other therapists who have reviewed the book as great and have not pointed this out as problematic.

What I have instead are “lightbulb memories,” bright moments of recollection sparsely scattered across a dark canvas. The memoir would have let us pour our tears out and the other would let us understand fully the DBT. If you find it difficult to understand, express, and process intense emotions - and most of us do - this book is for you.

It showed everyone that one can be depressed and suicidal and can snap out of it and become a legend. As a result of that episode, I had to fight to rebuild my high school education, which required me to go to night school while doing a day job to support myself. Overall, I’d recommend this for anyone who has a prior interest in Linehan, but it is unlikely to inspire or enlighten those who have never even heard of DBT. Marsha Linehan is a genius and her DBT has helped thousands of people live lives “worth living,” but this book is not well written and sheds little light on her life (especially if you are already familiar with DBT).

You'll no doubt find its ambiguity, not to mention the many dead ends and detours, a bit frustrating. As a teen, Marsha Linehan experienced suicidal ideation and was sent to an institution for the mentally unwell. As other reviewers have pointed out, I often lost track of which decade of her life I was reading about.

Linehan shows, in Building a Life Worth Living , how the principles of DBT really work—and how, using her life skills and techniques, people can build lives worth living. Reading her memoir I discovered that she made a promise to herself and God that she would help others stuck in hell when she got out of that awful hospital. Linehan included mindfulness as a key component in therapy treatment, along with original and specific life-skill techniques. They drive themselves to crazy tyring, I recognize that some people don’t have the skills to plant the garden they need. Her story did not feel cohesive at all and the constant jumping around between several decades gave me whiplash.