The character arc of Marsha Linehan
A life drawn by Character Arc from the public record
Born on 5 May 1943 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the third of six children. Between then and now sit a hospital admission weeks before her high school graduation, more than two years as an inpatient with treatments she has described as hell, a vow made alone in a piano room, a college trust fund left by a friend of her father, a degree in 1968, a doctoral internship at a suicide prevention service, a post at the University of Washington from 1977, the creation of dialectical behavior therapy, training in Zen, and a public disclosure in 2011 that she had been the patient all along. The line below draws the story so far, in order.
Drag along the line to move, pinch or use the buttons to look closer. Tap the line to pluck it, or any mark for its card. Drawn from the public record of her life; the sources are at the foot of the page.
Who is Marsha Linehan?
She made a vow in a piano room. It took forty years to keep.
She was the third of six children in Tulsa. Her father was an oil company vice president and her Cajun mother was deeply involved in church and volunteer work. Both parents have been described as image conscious, and she has said she often did not experience her family's love as well expressed, that she remembers being out of place, and that her mother tried to change her so she would fit.
Just weeks before her high school graduation she was admitted to the Institute of Living in Hartford, Connecticut, and diagnosed with schizophrenia. She was seventeen. She stayed more than two years. She began cutting herself. She was given electroconvulsive therapy, long periods of seclusion, extreme cold pack therapy and heavy medication. Her own words about it are that she knows what hell feels like and that every word she can find is inadequate to describe it.
Then, sitting alone one day in the piano room, she made a vow to God: that she would get herself out of hell, and that once she did she would go back into hell and get other people out. She has said that vow has guided and controlled her life ever since. She left the institute at twenty, after a doctor broke the pattern of her suicidal behaviour.
In Chicago she learned that a friend of her father had left her a college trust fund. She studied at a Jesuit university, worked in the university to make ends meet, read in hotel lobbies and rode the trains, and graduated with honours in psychology in 1968. She had realised by then that psychiatry did not have effective treatments for the people she most wanted to help. She took a doctorate, spent a year at a suicide prevention and crisis service in Buffalo, and joined the University of Washington in 1977.
What she built there is dialectical behavior therapy, which combines cognitive work with acceptance, mindfulness and shaping, and which worked for patients that existing methods were not helping. It became the first evidence based treatment for chronic suicidality and borderline personality disorder, and has since been shown to help with other conditions. The acceptance half of it came out of years at a Buddhist monastery and with a Zen teacher in Germany; she is an associate Zen teacher herself. She founded a company that trains clinicians in it and co-founded a certification board so that patients can tell who is properly trained.
In 2011, at sixty eight, she told a newspaper what had happened to her, and later wrote a memoir about it. She has said that although she was never formally diagnosed with it, she believes she actually had borderline personality disorder, the exact condition her therapy treats. A colleague has called her one of the two most influential clinical innovators in mental health.
The moments
Marsha Linehan's timeline.
The 1950s
Third of six in Tulsa
Everyday. A big family, a lot of appearances to keep up, and a child who did not fit.
The 1960s
Admitted at seventeen
Setback, and it changed everything. Weeks before she would have graduated, she was admitted instead.
More than two years inside
Setback, and it changed everything. Two years inside, and her own word for it is hell.
The vow in the piano room
Milestone, and it changed everything. Alone, at eighteen, with nothing, she made a promise and then kept it.
She leaves at twenty
Milestone, and it changed everything. Out, at twenty, with the worst of it behind her.
A stranger's trust fund
Milestone, and it changed everything. A friend of her father had quietly put money aside for her education.
A degree, with honours
Milestone, and it changed her direction. She got the degree, and she already knew what was missing.
The 1970s
A year on the crisis line
Milestone, and it changed everything. A year taking the calls, on the other side of the phone this time.
The University of Washington
Milestone, and it changed her direction. A university post, and a vow of poverty she was still keeping.
The 1980s
Watching the tapes
Milestone, and it changed everything. She built the therapy by watching tapes of what worked, over and over.
The acceptance half
Milestone, and it changed everything. The missing half of the therapy came out of a monastery.
The 1990s
Dialectical behavior therapy
Milestone, and it changed everything. The first treatment that worked for the people nothing worked for.
Training everybody else
Milestone, and it changed her direction. She made sure it could be taught, and taught properly.
The 2010s
Tell them, or keep it private
Crossroads, decided.
The paths laid out: say it publicly, taken, or keep the private half private. She published the whole account, and then wrote a memoir about it.
She says it out loud
Milestone, and it changed everything. Sixty eight years old, and she told everybody she had been the patient.
The therapy is taught in hospitals in every country that has them, and the certification board still checks who is qualified to give it. What she set moving is the vow itself, made alone by a seventeen year old in a piano room with nothing to back it up, and then kept, for sixty years, at scale.
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Marsha Linehan: frequently asked questions
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More character arcs
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Sources
- Marsha M. Linehan, English Wikipedia biography, filed under living people.
- Her own 2011 interview with The New York Times and her memoir, as quoted there.
- University of Washington records for her post from 1977 and the Behavioral Research and Therapy Clinics.