Dr. Marsha Linehan, the director of the UW’s Behavioral Research and Therapy Clinic (BRTC), was recently awarded the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) 2015 Scientific Research Award.
NAMI, America’s largest grassroots mental health organization, is devoted to promoting better mental health care resources. Linehan is the first-ever psychologist to win this award.
“Marsha gets a lot of awards these days,” said Katie Korslund, the associate director of the BRTC and Linehan’s colleague of 15 years. “This particular award was very exciting because NAMI is an organization that really speaks to the masses about what we can do for people who meet criteria for mental illness and everyone who’s affected by it.”
Linehan received this award for her work on Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), a comprehensive treatment that combines an attitude of accepting change with behavioral therapy developed for people at high-risk for suicide. It focuses on the development of mindfulness, interpersonal skills, emotional regulation, and distress tolerance.
“I’ve had people tell me, ‘you saved my life,’” Linehan said. “And these are people who tell me that, they themselves do not experience life as worth living … [DBT] will say to anyone that all lives are worth living, and that all lives can be experienced if you play your cards right.”…
–Megan Herndon, THe Daily of the University of Washington, October 1, 2015
