[Dialectic behavioral psychotherapy for patients with borderline personality disorder]

Any therapist working with borderline patients knows that this is a crisis prone population that can be as burdening for the professional clinician as for the individual who experiences these intense relational episodes. Within this context, it is quite surprising that leaders of the behavioral approach waited until the beginning of the nineties before applying their technology to the treatment of patients diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. Linehan put numerous efforts to empirically demonstrate the efficiency of her newly developed dialectical behavior therapy, which makes it a noteworthy model. This article presents some historical and philosophical underpinnings of her approach, followed by the diagnostic criteria, the main clinical tools she advocates, the various dialectal dilemma, the treatment modes as well as an overview of the basic therapeutic strategies used in this approach.