Borderline Personality Disorder

Gentle counsel and realistic advice for families contending with one of today's most misunderstood forms of mental illness. For family members of people with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), home life is routinely unpredictable and frequently unbearable. Extreme mood swings, impulsive behaviors, unfair blaming and criticism, and suicidal tendencies--common conduct among those who suffer from the disorder--leave family members feeling confused, hurt, and helpless. In Stop Walking on Eggshells, Randi Kreger's pioneering first book which sold more than 340,000 copies, she and co-author Paul T. Mason outlined the fundamental differences in the way that people with BPD relate to the world. Now, with The Essential Family Guide to Borderline Personality Disorder, Kreger takes readers to the next level by offering them five straightforward tools to organize their thinking, learn specific skills, and focus on what they need to do to get off the emotional rollercoaster: (1) Take care of yourself; (2) Uncover what keeps you feeling stuck; (3) Communicate to be heard; (4) Set limits with love; and (5) Reinforce the right behaviors. Together the steps provide a clear-cut system designed to help friends and family reduce stress, improve their relationship with their borderline loved one, improve their problem-solving skills and minimize conflict, and feel more self-assured about setting limits.

People with borderline personality disorder (BPD) can be intensely caring, warm, smart, and funny—but their behavior often drives away those closest to them. If you're struggling in a tumultuous relationship with someone with BPD, this is the book for you. Dr. Shari Manning helps you understand why your spouse, family member, or friend has such out-of-control emotions—and how to change the way you can respond. Learn to use simple yet powerful strategies that can defuse crises, establish better boundaries, and radically transform your relationship. Empathic, hopeful, and science based, this is the first book for family and friends grounded in dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), the most effective treatment for BPD.

The Borderline Personality Disorder Survival Guide is organized as a series of answers to questions common to BPD sufferers: What is BPD? How long does it last? What other problems co-occur with BPD? Overviews what we currently know about BPD make up the first section of the book. Later chapters cover several common treatment approaches to BPD: dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), mentalization-based therapy (MBT), and medical treatment using psychoactive drugs. In the last sections of the book, readers learn a range of day-to-day coping skills that can help moderate the symptoms of BPD.

This volume sets out clear recommendations for healthcare staff on how to diagnose and manage young people and adults who have borderlin personality disorder, in order to significantly improve their treatment and care. The accompanying CD-ROM contains all of the evidence on which the recommendations are based.

For the average clinician, individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD) often represent the most challenging, seemingly insoluble cases. This volume is the authoritative presentation of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), Marsha M. Linehan's comprehensive, integrated approach to treating individuals with BPD. DBT was the first psychotherapy shown in controlled trials to be effective with BPD. It has since been adapted and tested for a wide range of other difficult-to-treat disorders involving emotion dysregulation. While focusing on BPD, this book is essential reading for clinicians delivering DBT to any clients with complex, multiple problems. Companion volumes: The latest developments in DBT skills training, together with essential materials for teaching the full range of mindfulness, interpersonal effectiveness, emotion regulation, and distress tolerance skills, are presented in Linehan's DBT Skills Training Manual, Second Edition, and DBT Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets, Second Edition. Also available: Linehan's instructive skills training videos for clients--Crisis Survival Skills: Part One, Crisis Survival Skills: Part Two, From Suffering to Freedom, This One Moment, and Opposite Action.

Borderline personality disorder is a severe and complex psychiatric condition that, until recently, many considered nearly untreatable. But this optimistic guide to BPD provides information that will bring newfound hope to those who have this painful disorder, and to their family and friends. People with borderline personality disorder have problems coping with almost everything, and therefore anything can provoke them to impulsive actions, angry outbursts, and self-destructive behaviors. Their personal relationships are simultaneously overly dependent and strained, if not openly hostile, and frequently explosive. Incorporating the latest research and thinking on the disorder, Johns Hopkins psychiatrists Francis Mark Mondimore and Patrick Kelly conceptualize it in an original way. They explain that symptoms are the result of biological and behavioral problems, extremes of temperament, and impaired psychological coping, all of which may have a relationship with traumatic life events. The authors advocate a therapeutic approach incorporating compassion and optimism in the face of what is often a tumultuous disease. With proper treatment, people with borderline personality disorder can enjoy long remissions and improved quality of life.

The authoritative guide to understanding and living with borderline personality disorder, now fully revised and updated Millions of Americans suffer from borderline personality disorder (BPD), a psychiatric condition marked by extreme emotional instability, erratic and self-destructive behavior, and tumultuous relationships. Though it was once thought to be untreatable, today researchers and clinicians know that there is every reason for hope. Dr. Robert Friedel, a leading expert and pioneer in pharmacological treatment for BPD, combines his extensive knowledge and personal experience into this comprehensive guide. Borderline Personality Disorder Demystified shares: The latest findings on the course and causes of the disorder Up-to-date information on diagnosis An accessible overview of cutting-edge treatment options For those who have been diagnosed and those who think they may have the illness, and for the family and friends who love and support them, this book illuminates new information and points the way to an ever more hopeful future. The revised edition includes new forewords from Donald W. Black, MD, and Nancee S. Blum, MSW, and family educators James and Diane Hall.

A source of hope, expert advice, and guidance for people with borderline personality disorder and those who love them Do you experience frightening, often violent mood swings that make you fear for your sanity? Are you often depressed? Do you engage in self-destructive behaviors such as drug or alcohol abuse, anorexia, compulsive eating, self-cutting, and hair pulling? Do you feel empty inside, or as if you don't know who you are? Do you dread being alone and fear abandonment? Do you have trouble finishing projects, keeping a job, or forming lasting relationships? If you or someone you love answered yes to the majority of these questions, there's a good chance that you or that person suffers from borderline personality disorder, a commonly misunderstood and misdiagnosed psychological problem afflicting tens of millions of people. Princess Diana was one of the most well-known BPD sufferers. As a source of hope and practical advice for BPD sufferers and those who love them, this new book by Dr. Jerold J. Kreisman and Hal Straus, bestselling authors of I Hate You, Don't Leave Me, offers proven techniques that help you: * Manage mood swings * Develop lasting relationships * Improve your self-esteem * Keep negative thoughts at bay * Control destructive impulses * Understand your treatment options * Find professional help

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is characterized by unstable moods, negative self-image, dangerous impulsivity, and tumultuous relationships. Many people with BPD excel in academics and careers while revealing erratic, self-destructive, and sometimes violent behavior only to those with whom they are intimate. Others have trouble simply holding down a job or staying in school. Overcoming Borderline Personality Disorder is a compassionate and informative guide to understanding this profoundly unsettling--and widely misunderstood--mental illness, believed to affect approximately 6% of the general population. Rather than viewing people with BPD as manipulative opponents in a bitter struggle, or pitying them as emotional invalids, Valerie Porr cites cutting-edge science to show that BPD is a true neurobiological disorder and not, as many come to believe, a character flaw or the result of bad parenting. Porr then clearly and accessibly explains what BPD is, which therapies have proven effective, and how to rise above the weighty stigma associated with the disorder. Offering families and loved ones supportive guidance that both acknowledges the difficulties they face and shows how they can be overcome, Porr teaches empirically-supported and effective coping behaviors and interpersonal skills, such as new ways of talking about emotions, how to be aware of nonverbal communication, and validating difficult experiences. These skills are derived from Dialectical Behavior Therapy and Mentalization-based Therapy, two evidence-based treatments that have proven highly successful in reducing family conflict while increasing trust. Overcoming Borderline Personality Disorder is an empowering and hopeful resource for those who wish to gain better understanding of the BPD experience--and to make use of these insights in day-to-day family interactions. Winner of the ABCT Self Help Book Seal of Merit Award 2011

Understanding and Treating Borderline Personality Disorder: A Guide for Professionals and Families offers both a valuable update for mental health professionals and much-needed information and encouragement for BPD patients and their families and friends. The editors of this eminently practical and accessible text have brought together the wide-ranging and updated perspectives of 15 recognized experts who discuss topics such as A new understanding of BPD, suggesting that individuals may be genetically prone to developing BPD and that certain stressful events may trigger its onset New evidence for the success of various forms of psychotherapy, including Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), in reducing self-injury, drug dependence, and days in the hospital for some groups of people with BPD Pharmacology research showing that the use of specific medications can relieve the cognitive, affective, and impulsive symptoms experienced by individuals with BPD, as part of a comprehensive psychosocial treatment plan New resources for families to help them deal with the dysregulated emotions of their loved ones with BPD and to build effective support systems for themselves Yet much remains to be done. Research on BPD is 20 to 30 years behind that on other major psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Despite evidence to the contrary, much of the professional literature on BPD continues to focus on childhood trauma, abuse, and neglect as triggers for BPD -- to the detriment of both patient and family. Families of people with BPD must deal with an array of burdens in coping with the illness, often without basic information. The chapters on families and BPD give voice to the experience of BPD from the perspective of individuals and family members, and offer the hope that family involvement in treatment will be beneficial to everyone. Above all, this book is about the partnership between mental health professionals and families affected by BPD, and about how such a partnership can advance our understanding and treatment of this disorder and provide hope for the future.