Building a life worth living: a memoir

Foreword by Dr. Allen Frances

Part one. Building a life experienced as worth living

Descent into hell

I will prove them wrong

A traumatic invalidating environment

A stranger in a strange land

I had to leave Tulsa

Part two. On my way to Chicago

Intellectual and spiritual transformations

The path to thinking like a scientist

My enlightenment moment in the Cenacle Chapel

I have proved my point!

Love that came and went, came and went

A suicide clinic in Buffalo

The development of behaviorism and behavior therapy

Fitting in at last: small fish in a big pond

What have I done?

Finding a nurturing community

Like a fish on a hook

Finding a therapist, and an ironic twist

Part three. A thumbnail sketch of DBT

Finding my feet in Seattle and learning to live an anti-depressant life

My first research grant for behavior therapy and suicide

Science and spirituality

My fight for tenure

The birth of dialectical behavior therapy

Dialectics: the tension, or synthesis, between opposites

Learning acceptance skills

Not just acceptance-radical acceptance

Good advice from Willigis: keep going

Becoming a zen master

Trying to put zen into clinical practice

Mindfulness: we all have wise mind

DBT in clinical trial

Part four. The circle closes

A family at last

Going public with my story: the real origins of DBT.