foolzero - i appreciate your trying to challenge our thoughts here, but the thingy on PC kind of falls flat for me. with your parallel universe argument, PC is being misrepresented. with the quotes we've taken from Linehan - most aren't misrepresentations, they are direct quotes and paraphrases of what we've read.

being deliberately provocative to a client who is suicidal and whom you've just met is callous and arrogant. this is one of the elements i have come across in linehan's approach which does not sit well with me.

when we strip back her contributions, however, and are left with simple theories and practices such as mindfulness - then i have no problem! but most of these theories/practices have been around for decades, if not millenia, so i don't really see any original contribution of linehan in them.

i was actually talking to my T about this yesterday. he mentioned he does DBT with almost every client that he sees. i told him i thought linehan is a crazy devil woman. he asked me if i had watched her in interview (i hadn't - only read her journal articles and books), and he encouraged me to do so. he says she's even scarier in the flesh. and that everyone he's spoken to thinks she's a crazy woman also. haha.

he did say that some of her theories were very useful though, basically because they are so simple and unoriginal. unoriginal is a good thing - it means it's been around for ages and persisted as a practice because ppl have found it beneficial. i tried to talk about how manipulative i found some of the things she suggested, but i couldn't bring up proper examples (doh!), and he seemed a bit confused about what i was getting at. he did say he would only use some of those interpersonal therapeutic techniques with certain people, though. i.e., that DBT has a wide application when you strip interpersonal style away.

i will probably bring it up again next time, because i dont want him to try DBT with me. he's already tried some stuff which i am red flagging, because i thought it could've been manipulative (if he didn't mean it; stupid if he genuinely believed in what he was saying), but i'm trying to keep an open mind until i'm able to clarify.