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Tough Love is not an effective approach to BPD
Tough Love is not an effective approach with children and teenagers with Borderline Personality Disorder. Although some therapists and self-help authors recommend tough love as what should be done with BPD, it is ultimately detrimental to the borderline and to your relationship with the borderline. The problem comes in regarding the nature of the disorder. While behavioral therapies can work, those based on reinforcement and shaping, those therapies usually include acceptance strategies and non-judgmental approaches. The nature of BPD is that the individual with the disorder is in deep emotional pain because of the dysregulation of the emotional system. They are exquisitely sensitive to emotional experiences and many of these…
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It’s the emotions stupid
In “When Hope is Not Enough” I quote renown Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh about anger. Here is the quote: Anger is an unpleasant feeling. It is like a blazing flame that burns up our self-control and causes us to say and do things that we regret later. When someone is angry, we can see clearly that he or she is abiding in hell. Anger and hatred are the materials from which hell is made. A mind without anger is cool, fresh and sane. The absence of anger is the basis of real happiness, the basis of love and compassion. … When we are angry, we are not usually inclined…
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Tough Love Reconsidered with BPD
Does one use tough love with BPD? You can’t START with tough love, because first emotional trust has to be established.
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Tough Love is NOT the Answer with BPD
I often peruse the web for articles and posts about dealing with people with Borderline Personality Disorder and what I usually find is incorrect and misguided. I recently stumbled upon a post that can be found here: http://www.helium.com/tm/339437/individuals-suffering-borderline-personality In which the author gives some insight and advice about “dealing with” someone with Borderline Personality Disorder. I’d like to look at her advice by excerpting some of her text and then offer a little commentary. First of all, she says this: Individuals suffering from borderline personality disorder are very self-destructive and they have great difficulty forming any good relationships. A deep-seeded fear of abandonment is behind every wayward action and prolonged…