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Borderline Personality Disorder: Facts vs. Myths
Dialectical Behavioral Therapy is one of the most common and effective treatment approaches for BPD. Borderline Personality Disorder: Facts vs. Myths By Paula Durlofsky, PhD Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a serious psychiatric condition marked by a pattern of unstable and stormy relationships, an unformed sense of identity, chronic feelings of emptiness and boredom, unstable moods, and poor impulsive control in areas such as spending, eating, sex, and substance use. Fear surrounding real or imagined abandonment from loved ones is a profound concern for people with BPD and often is what underlies their destructive behaviors. Some people with BPD will go to dangerous lengths to avoid this fear, for example,…
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BPD Myth Busting: 7 common myths about Borderline Personality Disorder
Bon debunks 7 common myths about Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). Myth 1: BPD is untreatable Borderline Personality Disorder is treatable and in the past 15 years numerous evidence-based treatments have been designed to treat the disorder. Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Mentalization-based therapy and Transference-focused therapy have all been shown to improve the behavior, cognitive abilities and functioning of people with BPD. Myth 2: BPD only affects women A recent study by the NIAAA showed that the lifetime incidence of BPD was essentially equal in men and women. It has been widely accepted for many years that the gender breakdown of BPD is 75% female. It seems that the only reason…
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When Toxicity and Misinformation Know No Bounds
Boy, it’s amazing how much bad information travels around the Internet at the speed of light. People are so misinformed about BPD it’s scary. Yesterday, I stumbled across the “Yahoo Answers” site for a question in which a woman asked if she could “help her partner with Borderline Personality Disorder?” There were 10 “answers” to this question. Here are some excerpts from each, which the misinformation pointed out: “So, you sacrificed your children to a crazy person?? What is wrong with you?? Is there a clinical term for “glutton for punishment”?” Dissolve this toxic relationship immediately! Judgmental. Non-BPs don’t need another person telling them to leave their partner; there are…
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More on Hoovering
Yesterday, I received a long and thoughtful comment about my post The Myth Of Hoovering. I wanted to respond to it, because I believe that the commenter actually misunderstood my point about hoovering and why I called it a “myth.” Certainly, I was well-aware that the post (along with The Myth of the High-Functioning Borderline) would be controversial in the non/BPD-support community. The commenter said the following about my post: “Regarding the misinformation you mention, you’ve discounted the existence of the “hoovering” phenomenon on the basis that it’s not a conscious behaviour. In the link you provided, and in mentions of this concept I’ve seen elsewhere, I didn’t note any…
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Net BPD Myth Debunking from “Tides…”
A few weeks ago I discovered the “Tides of Crazy Love Blog,” which is written by someone I “know” (meaning I know her via an email board). I LOVE her writing. I really do. Recently, she started “debunking” Internet myths and misunderstanding about BPD. More power to her! Here is an excerpt from her debunking the “Rules of Engagement” from BPD411.org (the first paragraph comes from BPD411.org): “Rule #5: If at any time the Non figures out the Rules of Engagement for BPD Land, the BPD’er must change the situation, rewrite history, and thereby purchase the Non a one way ticket back to BPD Land.” (BON Note: this is excerpted…
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The Myth of the High-Functioning Borderline
While this post is popular and many people read it, it is old. If you’d like to get a newer/different perspective go to the UPDATE: see this link. Today’s subject is the Myth of the High-Functioning Borderline. I have been scouring the research on BPD to find out if anyone in the research or therapeutic community uses this term or concept high-functioning versus low-functioning Borderline. I have yet to find any author in either the research community or therapeutic community reference this concept. It crops up in the support community (in “Stop Walking on Eggshells” and on both bpd411.org and bpdcentral.com). It also crops up in the “cross-over” community (see…