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Beyond Boundaries now available in a printed format
My follow-up to When Hope is Not Enough, entitled Beyond Boundaries, is now available in a printed format from the publisher. You can buy a copy by clicking on the cover: No related posts.
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New Workbook, YOU UNTANGLED, Helps Those Suffering from BPD
Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a serious mental illness, which according to the National Institute of Mental Health, affects approximately 1.6 percent of Americans age 18 or older (3.8 million). In an effort to assist those suffering from BPD, Amy Tibbitts has written A DBT Skills Workbook: You Untangled – Practical Tools to Manage Your Emotions and Improve Your Life. This new book focuses on Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) skills training so individuals can live a healthy life free of self-abusive behaviors. Amy Tibbitts, the director of The Lilac Center, has provided a wide range of psychological services with a focus on Dialectical Behavior Therapy for fifteen years. DBT, which differs from…
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Ask Bon: Why is this person so sensitive to rejection?
Rejection Sensitivity is the tendency to “anxiously expect, readily perceive and overreact to social rejection.” Someone with BPD will almost certainly have this feature. Have you ever had your loved one ask you: “Are you mad at me?” Or has your loved one asked you: “Do you like me?” over and over again? Or have they said, “You could do so much better than me. Why are you even with me?” These questions and others like them are indications that your loved one is suffering from rejection sensitivity. Someone with rejection sensitivity will also avoid tasks, meetings or other social interactions if there is any sense of rejection implied. She…
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Ask Bon: Why does this person idolize me one day and call me “the devil” the next?
Black-and-white thinking is the tendency for a person to believe that events or other people are either “all-good” or “all-bad” in any given situation. People with BPD will often vacillate between these two polar ways of thinking, sometimes about the same event or person. This way of thinking is also known as “splitting.” In the support community, loved ones of BP’s will say that they have been “split-white” (meaning, they are thought to be all good) or “split-black” (thought to be all bad). A person with BPD who thinks in this fashion will have an inability to see “shades of grey” in a situation or relationship. This approach can be…
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Ambiguity is the greatest threat
In 2009, I attended the International Society for the Study of Personality Disorders (ISSPD) in New York. Dr. Glen Gabbard, MD, a psychiatrist and clinician that treats people with Borderline Personality Disorder (#BPD). About halfway through his presentation, Dr. Gabbard said: “Ambiguity is the greatest threat.” He was speaking in the context of a clinician treating someone with BPD. Many studies have show that people with BPD react to neutral facial expressions as if the person is angry. People with BPD interpret neutral faces as angry. I once saw a woman with BPD view a picture of a neutral face and she said, “He’s angry with me.” Dr. Gabbard was suggesting to…
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Five things you can do as a supporter of a person with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)
Five of the first things you can do when you discover that someone you care for has Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). I often have “newbies” or beginning non-BPD family members ask me some things they can do to get acclimated to the world of BPD. I have thought about this long and hard and have come up with these five things: 1. Watch “Back from the Edge”. This 48 minute documentary was made by New York Presbyterian Hospital and includes some of the world’s most knowledgeable experts in the treatment and understanding of BPD, including Dr. Marsha Linehan, the inventor of DBT. The video is available here: Back from the Edge…