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How does one mentalize?
It is important to remember that mentalization is about NOW. It is not about any other moment than now. Therefore, if you aredragging old issues or future worries into the conversation (or if the other person is) then you are experiencing a “failure to mentalize.” You mentalize by continually monitoring the progress and state of a conversation. You mentalize by asking questions about thecurrent conversation, the feelings and intention of the other person and monitoring your own feelings and understanding of the current conversation. It is a natural skill and is built into the human mind; however, it is also a difficult skill, because we are often not mindful of…
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Someone to Call Home – #BPD and Attachment
Even as adults, sometimes people need their mommy. People with BPD, being so emotional, need other people a lot. The people thatare being needed are “attachment people.” The first attachment that a person makes in their life is usually to their mother. Some in the psychiatric community call BPD an “attachment disorder”, meaning the initial attachment with the mother is disordered in someway and it models future attachments which also become disordered. The birth of the self and how one looks at oneself is developed during the period of first attachment. If this attachment is done in a non-disordered way, the child develops a stable self image, one in which…
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Important Consequences of Dysregulated Behavior in #BPD
Since BPD is chiefly an emotional disorder and since shame is involved I have found the following about consequences for someone with BPD (from most important to least): Future Painful Emotions Judgment of Others Suffering of Others (especially children) Punishment What this means is that the “normal” (or natural) consequences might not actually “take” in someone with BPD. A threat of punishment is less likely to cause behavior change than the possibility of future negative emotions – the “I’m going to feel really bad when…” consequence. Adapted from Beyond Boundaries
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Stop Walking on Eggshells 2nd Edition
Because it is now 10 years old, New Harbinger has decided to publish a second edition of Stop Walking on Eggshells (aka SWOE). I read the first version of SWOE in October of 2005 and re-read it last year just to make sure that my impressions of the book were not rusty. SWOE is by far the most successful self-help book for Non-BPD people (loved ones of people with Borderline Personality Disorder – BPD). Just about everyone on my email support list (the ATSTP list) has read it. I wanted to post a couple of observations about the new edition as well as some of the experiences that I and others have had…
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Getting to know you – the essence of supporting someone with BPD
In the documentary “Back from the Edge” Dr. Marsha Linehan (the DBT inventor) says: “you can actually define borderline personality disorder as the ‘I don’t fit in’ disorder.” In the past few days I have been thinking about this concept quite a bit. I believe that this is the core of living with and loving a person with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). The core is for the loved ones to make sense of the other person, based on the borderline’s feelings, thoughts, motivations and beliefs (even if these beliefs are not aligned with the environment). Too many times the loved ones, family members and partners of those with borderline personality disorder,…
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When it’s all about your feelings and what you can do
Participate in a Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) group, where one is taught the four effective stress-reducing skills of distress tolerance, mindfulness, emotion regulation and interpersonal effectiveness. You will learn to cope better. Vital Signs: It is all about me, actually (link) By CLAIRE HUTCHINSON AND TIMOTHY CAMPBELL Let’s face it: We all get stressed sometimes, but why does stress seem to affect some people more than others? Would you say that: » Others know what they are doing and you feel like you don’t? » Others don’t seem to be bothered by life’s little “zings?” » Others are moving toward something positive or away from something negative and you are…