DBT - Dialectical Behavior Therapy

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) developed between the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s by Marsha M. Linehan, an American psychologist and professor emeritus at Washington University (see https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsha_Linehan ;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsha_M._Linehan). It is a treatment originally developed for subjects at serious risk of suicide subsequently applied to subjects with Borderline Personality Disorder and other multi-problem psychiatric and psychological conditions .
Emotional dysregulation, understood as difficulty in managing one's emotions and making strategic and adaptive use of them, is the basis of the conceptual and operational model of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT). The intervention model adopts a dialectical approach for "a life worth living", an approach of seeking balance between two fundamental principles: the first refers to the acceptance of reality as it is and involves an empathetic and compassionate attitude towards of suffering and of the person asking for help, the second refers to the principle of problem solving and works in the direction of producing change, in the same committed and radical way that inspires the principle of acceptance.
Empirical research, replicated and applied in more than 50 countries around the world, has widely demonstrated the effectiveness of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) in the treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder, and many complex psychiatric and psychological conditions, establishing DBT as one of the leading and most widespread evidence-based treatments (see https://www.cochrane.org/CD012955/ BEHAV_psychological-therapies-people-borderline-personality-disorder).
But DBT is not just that; the strength of its innovation has profoundly changed consolidated ideas and practices in psychiatry and clinical psychology, revealing itself as an opportunity for cultural change in the way of understanding the existential and human conditions of the most suffering and apparently least reachable patients.
DBT was included by the TIME weekly magazine in the volume 100 New Scientific Discoveries, a special edition dedicated to presenting 100 areas of research in 10 disciplines, including Psychology, which have had the greatest impact on the scientific field. Allen Frances in the preface to Marsha Linehan's autobiographical volume “A Life Worth Living” (Italian translation Cortina, 2021) celebrates its spirit with these words “In the last half century there have only been two truly influential clinical innovators in mental health field: one is Aaron “Tim” Beck, who developed cognitive therapy in the 1960s. The other is Marsha.” In January 2024 Marsha Linehan received an award/recognition for developing DBT at the 48th edition of the WA Statel Legacy organized by the University of Washington.