It is with heavy hearts that we announce the passing of Dr. Marsha Linehan, the developer of Dialectical Behavior Therapy. 

Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Marsha was no stranger to mental health issues.  As an adolescent and young adult, she struggled with suicide and self-harm behavior that resulted in lengthy inpatient hospitalizations.  When she was discharged, Marsha began to formulate a plan to change mental health treatment forever.  Marsha put herself through undergraduate and graduate schools with the help of a family friend who saw her potential and established and educational trust for her. 

When she was given a position at the University of Washington, Marsha began to study suicidal behavior and found patterns of extreme suffering in the group of clients who met criteria for borderline personality disorder (BPD).  In true Marsha fashion, she reviewed all of the treatment research she should find, and pulled together the most effective aspects of seemingly contradictory schools of thought.  To reconcile these disparate principles, Marsha added dialectics, a means of synthesizing  that allows for the wisdom in both positions and a middle path to pull people from extremes.  From this, Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) was created.  Marsha realized that the lives of people who were suicidal and/or self-harming are lives of suffering and misery. She did not seek to prevent suicide but to help people to develop lives where suicide was no longer an option.  Building a life worth living is the foundation of DBT.  From there, Marsha began to conduct randomized controlled trials (RCT’s) funded by the National Institute of Mental Health.  Throughout her career and the accolades she achieved, Marsha never took her focus from helping decrease the suffering in the world.  Marsha understood suffering and how to build a life worth living like very few people ever have.  The world is full of people whose lives have been changed because she believed that we all have the ability to build the lives we want. 

We at TIC had the honor of working with Marsha for many years.  We worked with her training organizations, her lab and spent our careers trying to disseminate and implement DBT.  Her voice will be missed. 

Marsha taught us all what to do with sadness.  How to experience it.  How to respect it.  And how not to become overwhelmed by it.  As we go through this time, we will use what she taught us.  There are not words to say how much she will be missed, personally and professionally.  What we can say is that this world is a better place because Marsha Linehan was here.   

-Shari Manning