Marsha M. Linehan

Marsha M. Linehan (born May 5, 1943) is an American psychologist, professor, and author. She created dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), an evidence-based psychotherapy that combines cognitive restructuring with acceptance, mindfulness, and shaping. Linehan's development of DBT was a major advancement in the field of psychology, effective at treating clients who were not improving with the existing methods at the time. This unlocked new means of treating people with chronic suicidality and borderline personality disorder (BPD) and has since been shown to be helpful to people with other disorders.