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5th Anniversary of ATSTP List and Some Support for Non-BPDs
Today is the 5th anniversary of the Anything to Stop the Pain support list. After over 50,000 messages and 600+ members, it is still going strong. The ATSTP list is offered for free to non-BPDs. In honor of this momentous occasion, I will clip a response from me to a list member. Any personal details have been removed. The only thing blog readers need to know is that this man’s wife has been diagnosed with BPD and is asking him for a divorce. We also have a couple of recovered borderlines on this list and they are a valuable resource (as is noted here): I believe that there is no…
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Reinforcement and “Behaving Better”
Reinforcement, especially positive reinforcement, is a powerful teaching tool. You could more accurately say “training” tool. You have probably used reinforcement in your life without even realizing it. Consider potty training. If you have ever potty-trained (or as many modern texts call it “toilet taught”) a toddler, you know how difficult that task can be. However, all kids eventually learn to use the potty – I don’t know of a case of a kid going into high school without knowing how to use the potty. Potty training provides an excellent example of positive reinforcement and the ignoring of “backsliding.” That is the essence of this tool. When you teach a…
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A Preoccupation with Interpersonal Relationships
This feature is a new one that I have added to my “model” of BPD. I added it because I was attending the International Society for the Study of Personality Disorders (ISSPD) and listened to Dr. John Gunderson present a detailed model of his experience with BPD. The purpose of the presentation was to present a “real world” clinical model of BPD from the viewpoint of someone with many years of experience treating the disorder. One of the features that Dr. Gunderson provided was this “preoccupation with attachments.” I believe this feature is born of an unstable sense of self. A person with BPD has difficulty “locating herself in the…
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Holy Moly! An article about the girl who doused her face in acid that actually gets it!
When I saw this article come through the Google news alerts I thought: “Oh no, an article that’s going to say ‘she did it for attention’ because she has BPD and they are attention-seeking.” I was mightily surprised when I read the article and realized that here’s someone that actually knows what she’s talking about. Why would Bethany Storro douse herself in acid? Experts try to explain When news broke Thursday that a Vancouver woman admitted dousing herself with powerful acid, causing severe facial burns, one question reverberated: Why would anyone do such a thing? Friday, a leading researcher in the field of self-harm discounted theories that Bethany Storro, 28,…
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BPD, Self-Regulation and Others
Ok, after posting about book sales recently and stuff like that, now it’s time for a much more substantive post about BPD. Today, I plan to talk about self-regulation and a new study that points out an intriguing aspect of BPD. There has been much talk in the BPD research and clinical community about the “core” of BPD. Once it was thought to be a personality disorder or even an extreme form of PTSD. Dr. Marsha Linehan (the inventor of DBT) talks about dysregulation in a number of systems, the most important of which (in my interpretation) is the emotional regulation system. People with BPD are extremely emotionally sensitive and…
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Shame and BPD
In researching the implications of shame in BPD, I found this research study: Shame and Implicit Self-Concept in Women With Borderline Personality Disorder * Nicolas Rüsch, M.D., Klaus Lieb, M.D., Ines Göttler, M.D., Christiane Hermann, Ph.D., Elisabeth Schramm, Ph.D., Harald Richter, Ph.D., Gitta A. Jacob, Ph.D., Patrick W. Corrigan, Psy.D., and Martin Bohus, M.D. * *OBJECTIVE: *Shame is considered to be a central emotion in borderline personality disorder and to be related to self-injurious behavior, chronic suicidality, and anger-hostility. However, its level and impact on people with borderline personality disorder are largely unknown. The authors examined levels of self-reported shame, guilt, anxiety, and implicit shame-related self-concept in women with borderline…