People with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) have difficulties living a stable life. They are impulsive, make their relationships rocky and one of their worst fears is of being abandoned.
People with BPD experience their emotions in extreme ways, which leads them to take actions that are inexplicable to others. For example, if a friend does not reply to their text shortly, they may start thinking about self-cutting because they cannot tolerate the angst caused by the wait time. They may engage in self-injury behaviours, threat suicide and take actions to cause anguish to the people that they interact with and get the reaction they need/want. Those who suffer this condition usually have intense anger and cannot control it which results in frequent arguments and fights. They may have chronic feelings of emptiness, which they may possibly attempt to fill with impulsive behaviours in the areas of spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, or binge eating. Usually, people who developed this condition had extremely distressing childhoods.
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The gold standard psychological treatment for BPD is DBT (Dialectical Behavioural Therapy). DBT is therapy developed by Marsha Linehan, a psychologist based in Washington in the 1990s. A comprehensive treatment that includes cognitive and behavioural strategies to help individuals with multiple disorders including out of control behaviours, emotional dysregulation and at risk of suicide.
DBT treatment includes the validation of emotions, CBT (Cognitive behavioural therapy), coping skills to regulate and emotions and interact with others and mindfulness meditation. During therapy clients learn how to change their dysfunctional beliefs and behaviours, to accept and tolerate their distress and to feel more in control.
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