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A new article about BPD in NY Times and the reaction
I was both encouraged and dismayed by Jane Brody’s article about Borderline Personality Disorder in the NY Times. Here is the text of the original: June 16, 2009 Personal Health An Emotional Hair Trigger, Often Misread By JANE E. BRODY In the popular 1999 movie “Girl, Interrupted,” Winona Ryder portrays a young woman who tries to commit suicide, then spends nearly a year in a psychiatric hospital with a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder. The film, based on a 1993 memoir by Susanna Kaysen, was gripping. But experts say it oversimplified this common yet poorly understood mood disorder. Georges Han, a recovered patient now studying at the University of Minnesota…
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What is your goal for your relationship?
I have recently made a realization about the other Non-BP writers and myself. I realized that our goals are completely different. When reading other books about being a loved one of a person with Borderline Personality Disorder (mainly those written by lay people, as opposed to professionals), I have found that essentially we fall into three categories. These categories are: Those that are chiefly concerned with stopping the emotional abuse doled out by the person with BPD. This category is the largest of the three. Most books written about being a loved one of someone with BPD fall into this category. These books include: “Tears and Healing”, “Stop Walking on…
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Interesting Article about Emotional Abuse and Victim Identity
Here’s an interesting article about Victim Identity and Emotional Abuse…. The original is here. The Line between Victims and AbusersSteven StosnyCreated May 15 2009 – 6:52am Victim identity is focus on damages suffered at the hands of other people. The desire to be identified as a victim creates a sense of entitlement and a motive to devalue anyone who does not offer special recognition and validation of victim status or compensation for it. In our Age of Entitlement, it is often difficult for friends and therapists to detect abuse in intimate relationships and to discern who the primary abuser is. This is especially hard in cases of emotional abuse, with…
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Walking on Eggshells Quiz
A quiz to find out if you’re “walking on eggshells” around your partner: The Walking on Eggshells Quiz If you find that you are, and think that your partner has Borderline Personality Disorder traits. I suggest you check out the resources that I provide on this site – that is, if you want to stay with your partner and want to learn how to make things easier and better. “Stop Walking on Eggshells” is a great title for a book; however, the book itself will not teach you the skills necessary to stay in the relationship effectively. I have found that the skills in that book (commonly known as SWOE)…
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DBT, MBT and the Behavioral Chain
One of the things I have noticed about Dialectical Behavior Therapy Family Skills versus Mentalization Based Skills is that they operate at a different link on the behavioral chain. In “When Hope is Not Enough” I have a section called “the BPD Dynamic.” What this dynamic outlines is a behavioral chain. That chain goes like this: Event -> Interpretation -> Emotional/Physical Feelings -> Action Impulses -> Expression and Behavior DBT-FST seems to me to operate at the Action Impulses to Expression and Behavior link, while validating the Emotional/Physical Feelings link. Don’t get me wrong, the DBT-FST skills are extremely powerful in communicating with someone with BPD. Yet, the change that…