In the mental health community, the diagnosis of borderline personality disorder in a client can cause professionals to figure out quickly transfer the individual to someone else "more qualified,." Working with someone with BPD requires patience, empathy and a clear ability to set and maintain firm boundaries. If it is difficult for the trained professional, it clearly will be a challenge for the family members and loved ones to deal with that person.
Instructions
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1. The first step is to educate yourself on borderline personality disorder. This illness is characterized by efforts to avoid being abandoned, suicidal statements and gestures, an unstable sense of self, black and white thinking, anger management issues, chronic feelings of emptiness and impulsivity. For a full list of symptoms, please consult the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV TR) under personality disorders. You can find this in the library, bookstores or online.
2. After you have evaluated your loved one and decided they may truly fit this profile, you need to seek support. Families of persons with BPD can be torn apart by the individual's behavior. It is imperative to have assistance and encouragement from those who understand and can guide you. Call your local branch of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill or a community mental health center.
3. Let the person with BPD know your feelings about behavior (be specific) and reflect back to them their feelings. If you attempt to placate them and fix their issue when they are in an emotional storm, you will fail and run the risk of being burned out and involved in unnecessary and ineffective drama. The BPD person will move on to the next issue, but you may take much longer to recover.
4. Set limits and keep them. For instance, if they are verbally abusive and you have warned them that you would not talk to them under those conditions, then you must keep your word.
5. As you set limits and keep them, you also need to reassure the loved one that you will still be there. For instance you could say something like "I will not talk to you when you are yelling, I am leaving, but we will talk later". Since BPD individuals struggle with real and perceived abandonment issues and black and white thinking, they need constant assurance that you will continue to be steady and present.
6. Do not focus on the person's feelings; instead, discuss behavior. Observe their actions and effects on you and ask them to change whatever it is that is disruptive to you. Give give them specific and measurable suggestions, but do not attempt to change how they feel about it. This will backfire on you. The more matter of fact and concrete you are, the more success you will have with the BPD sufferer.
Tags: black white, black white thinking, borderline personality, borderline personality disorder, keep them, limits keep, limits keep them