Wysteria, I don't know if you've ever watched a video done by Marshia Linehan (developer of DBT), but she is warm, funny and very very good at setting boundaries in a real and confident way. She GETS how painful it is to have BPD, and I could feel that from her videos even before she came out this year and admitted that she had BPD and was hospitalized for over a year (in her late teens) for severe self-destructive/self abusive behavior. In fact, Linehan is quite clear in her belief that humor is critical in working with individuals who have BPD and using humor in life is taught in DBT skills.

That said, there are many individuals who jump on the DBT bandwagon and run it down the rails like it's the holy grail of therapy. Personally, I think the really good therapists who work with individuals with BPD view DBT skills as exactly that a set of life skills and not the end all to be all. Linehan does advocate (or she used to, I haven't read any of her recent stuff) that when a client is in DBT group, she also be in therapy with a therapist who is DBT trained. That's because she wants the client to practice her DBT skills every moment, day and night and the therapist is there to coach the client using the DBT skills. If you think of it from that angle, she wouldn't be too supportive of the client working with a therapist who isn't using DBT skills because that would shove a wedge into the learning process. That said, we all know that the connection and degree of trust a client has in her therapist is critical to bringing about a successful conclusion to the whole therapy process. So, I don't put too much stock in walking away from a therapist who you have learned to trust and be vulnerable with!

I'd take what the ice queen said with a BIG ole grain of salt. Sounds like she's sitting a bit high on her pedestal of being the only therapist in the area who is an expert in working with people with BPD and teaching DBT skills. Knowledge about a skill isn't everything . . . . I think the ability to be connected, gentle compassion/empathy, able to understand and grasp the concept of being humble but confident and a good sense of humor are a lot higher on the therapeutic hierarchie than cold hard fact.