Understanding BPD Therapy

What is BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder) therapy all about? Borderline Personality Disorder, as its name suggests, is a serious mental health condition that involves extreme emotional intensity and volatile outbursts. The incessant emotions that come with this disorder can be very difficult to bear and can even leave the sufferer feeling desperate. This is especially so if one suffers from the condition in various stages over a long period of time.

BPD can affect a person of any age and race – even though it predominantly affects women. It is not easy to diagnose BPD early. The symptoms can become apparent only after years of abuse. When this happens, people are usually misdiagnosed with some other mental illness such as schizophrenia or post-traumatic stress disorder. Only when the sufferer has suffered severe injuries and lost a great deal of their ability to function normally do they start to be given a proper diagnosis. That is why BPD is notoriously difficult to treat and can remain untreated for decades.

BPD can wreak havoc in a family life and on the individual’s social and personal life as well. It often goes undiagnosed for years, even though partners, friends, colleagues and children might be experiencing similar behaviour and emotional patterns. BPD can make healthy relationships feel fragile and chaotic, and a supportive partner can find it difficult to understand and accept the behaviour of a difficult loved one. Emotionally distressed sufferers often fear that they will never be able to love or trust another person again and this can have an extremely detrimental effect on their ability to form new connections and form stable relationships. People suffering from this disorder who try to seek out and gain self-help or psychotherapy find it incredibly challenging and sometimes impossible to get the levels of treatment they require.

So how do you best help people with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)? A good starting point is to make them feel like they are always at the centre of attention. This will inevitably make them feel anxious and depressed, but there is hope for these feelings to be managed and eventually alleviated. When they realise that they are not the centre of the world, but rather something to be pitied and avoided, they may begin to look towards alternative routes of treatment such as BPD therapy.

An early stage of treatment involves the use of CBT, which stands for cognitive behaviour therapy. This means that your therapist will help you to manage your emotions and develop new ways of approaching and dealing with the myriad of emotions that we all encounter in our lives. In general, you will be taught how to take a good, balanced view of yourself and others, how to avoid isolating yourself and how to express yourself in a supportive and non-judgmental manner. However, in some cases, the therapist may choose to focus on particular emotions such as shame and guilt.

When CBT is combined with exposure to and exploration of emotional territory, patients may find that their recovery speed is dramatically increased. The exposure can take the form of being spoken about in public or even taken to the cleaners’ bathroom! Once your therapist has worked on your feelings in this way, you will likely feel much less isolated and the disorder will start to dissipate.

Many people with BPD have what is referred to as ‘boundary crossing’ – where they break free of the relationship they initially started with only to return to it months or years later. In BPD, this is often done in a subtle way that is meant to be tactful, loving and yet still aggressive. It’s important to note that boundary crossing is an act that can have serious consequences. If done too early, it can lead to depression, substance abuse and other serious psychological disorders. Therefore, it is very important that your therapist catches boundary crossings early so that you can learn how to deal with them and get past them without further damaging your personal and professional life.

Finally, when it comes to CBT and EMDR, the two types of therapy are completely different. While they work very well together, a problem that is treated using one modality will not necessarily be treated using the other. This is because they address different aspects of emotional functioning including self-destructive behaviors and obsessive thoughts. The purpose of CBT is to treat these behaviors and emotions using tools such as cognitive behavioral therapy and then use EMDR to help patients relive their memories of the events that triggered their disorders.