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This past June renowned clinical psychologist Marsha M. Linehan of the University of Washington made a striking admission. Known for her pioneering work on borderline personality disorder (BPD), a severe and intractable psychiatric condition, 68-year-old Linehan announced that as an adolescent, she had been hospitalized for BPD. Suicidal and self-destructive, the teenage Linehan had slashed her limbs repeatedly with knives and other sharp objects and banged her head violently against the hospital walls. The hospital's discharge summary in 1963 described her as "one of the most disturbed patients in the hospital." Yet despite a second hospitalization, Linehan eventually improved and earned a Ph.D. from Chicago's Loyola University in 1971.

Many psychologists and psychiatrists were taken aback by Linehan's courageous admission, which received high-profile coverage in the New York Times. Part of their surprise almost surely stemmed from an uncomfortable truth: people with BPD are often regarded as hopeless individuals, destined to a life of emotional misery. They are also frequently viewed as so disturbed that they cannot possibly achieve success in everyday life. As a consequence, highly accomplished individuals such as Linehan do not fit the stereotypical mold of a former BPD sufferer. But as Linehan's case suggests, much of the intense pessimism and stigma surrounding this disorder are unjustified. Indeed, few psychological disorders are more mischaracterized or misunderstood.