Borderline Personality Disorder Therapy

Are you struggling with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) symptoms, such as emotional dysregulation, chaotic relationships and suicidal thinking? Are you struggling to maintain strong, long-term friendships? Are your family relationships strained and constantly plagued by fights and arguments? Are you feeling ‘on edge’ and worried that people will leave you for your faults?

Living with Borderline Personality Disorder is exhausting and very difficult at times. It affects people in very different ways, but usually involves daily emotional ups and downs that feel like a rollercoaster. To manage this emotional dysregulation, you may have found that you have resorted to dangerous or ineffective coping strategies such as drinking, recreational drug use, self-harm or oversleeping/overeating. You may find yourself hopeless at times, wondering if you’ll ever be able to get a break from the long-lasting and painful emotional experiences.

What exactly is BPD?

Borderline Personality Disorder is a mental health diagnosis for those who have specific traits and behaviours that rooted in their personality, mainly, an unstable sense of self and interpersonal difficulties. People with BPD often have a poor self-image, are unable to direct themselves, have damaging or harmful behaviours directed towards themselves, intense and quickly changing moods, chronic feelings of emptiness or anger, and paranoid thoughts when stressed. They often complain of dissociation (a sense of disconnection from the body) that is triggered by high points of stress.

Due in part to the confused sense of self and rapidly changing mood states, people living with BPD find their relationships are often in a state of conflict and unease. BPD most often includes an intense fear of abandonment, which causes them to take considerable action to try to prevent their loved ones from leaving them. The person often swings from idealizing their friends/family to being hyper-critical and hateful towards them. Many people describe their relationships as being nothing short as “intense”.

What does therapy for BPD look like?

Borderline Personality Disorder is usually treated with a course of Dialectical Behaviour Therapy with helps with client in four distinct areas:

DISTRESS TOLERANCE: The person learns and practices healthier, better ways to manage intense emotional states. The goal of distress tolerance training is to replace unhelpful and harmful ways of reacting to negative emotions with effective tools that don’t make the situation worse over time.

EMOTION REGULATION: The person learns how to track, predict and reduce negative emotional states. By better understanding their own triggers and working to reduce the things that can make them more vulnerable to negative emotions and destructive behaviours (such as hunger and little sleep), they learn to prevent high intensity emotions. They also learn how to create and embrace more positive mood states through pleasant activities and hobbies that build mastery and a better sense of self.

INTERPERSONAL EFFECTIVENESS: Part of the DBT is dedicated to discovering and maintaining positive relationships with others. The person learns to identify what they want and need from others and learns effective tools for getting their needs met. They learn to notice and mitigate what gets in their way of having stable relationships at work and at home.

MINDFULNESS: Mindfulness training is an important step in helping the person be more open, willing, and compassionate towards their own inner world. They practice non-attachment to thoughts and feelings and to withhold judgment from life’s painful experiences.

How will my life look different?

Borderline Personality Disorder is not easy to live with. You may feel alone and out of control. Much of this is related to not having the right tools and skill set to navigate the painful experiences you have endured. Dialectical Behaviour Therapy is the gold standard for helping people with BPD, and backed by research to help people feel less suicidal, feel more regulated, and have stronger relationships.

Borderline Personality Disorder does not have to define you. Emotions are temporary states and you can learn to not let them destroy you.

Therapy for BPD at Brookhaven

Our clinicians are heavily trained and practiced in Dialectical Behaviour Therapy skills. Although we do not offer a comprehensive DBT program, we do offer individualized skills training that is DBT informed. Many of our clinicians have practiced on DBT consultation teams and are well versed in DBT principles. Consult with us today to see if you would benefit from our Borderline Personality Disorder therapy.