Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) can make emotions feel intense and difficult to manage. You may experience rapid shifts in emotions, intense or unstable relationships, uncertainty about who you are, impulsive behaviors, or a persistent sense of emptiness. These experiences can affect relationships, work, and your ability to feel in control of your life.
BPD is treatable, and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is an evidence-based treatment developed specifically for BPD.
At Wise Mind Counseling, I provide DBT to help you regulate intense emotions, build more stable relationships, reduce problematic beahviors and create a life that feels more meaningful and manageable.
Understanding BPD
Everyone has strong emotions or relationship problems at times. BPD includes long-term dysregulation that is highly interfering and occurs in several areas of life.
The following areas of dysregulation are commonly experienced:
- Emotions: Highly sensitive and reactive emotional responses, with difficulty returning to baseline or settling down once an emotion has been triggered.
- Relationships: Intense, chaotic, or unstable relationships; fears of abandonment; difficulty maintaining relationships; or feelings of emptiness.
- Self-image: Uncertainty about your preferences, goals, and values; difficulty maintaining a consistent sense of self; and low self-confidence.
- Behaviors: Impulsive behaviors that may result from difficulty regulating emotions or attempts to manage intense emotions, such as self-harm, disordered eating, spending, or addictive behaviors.
- Thoughts: Extreme or inflexible thinking, difficulty finding a middle ground, and difficulty developing balanced, nonjudgmental interpretations.
What causes borderline personality disorder (BPD): The Biosocial Theory of BPD refers to a transaction between biology and environment that causes the overall areas of dysregulation.
How is BPD Treated?
Comprehensive DBT
Comprehensive Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is a structured treatment that includes individual therapy, skills training, phone coaching as needed, and a consultation team for therapists. Treatment is delivered in stages:
- Stage 1: Stabilize behaviors — Address suicide attempts and self-harm, behaviors that interfere with therapy, and quality-of-life concerns such as relationship difficulties and addiction.
- Stage 2: Process trauma — If there is also a PTSD diagnosis during DBT, Prolonged Exposure (DBT-PE) is used to address PTSD. Trauma therapy begins once any interfering behaviors have been regulated.
- Stage 3: Build a meaningful life — Strengthen skills while working toward greater meaning, purpose, and enjoyment in life.
DBT-informed treatment incorporates selected DBT strategies into individual therapy rather than providing the full comprehensive DBT program. It can be adapted to your specific needs. The type and intensity of DBT treatment depends on your needs and treatment goals. DBT has been researched and proven to be effective for concerns beyond borderline personality disorder.
Common Questions About BPD
What causes BPD?: The Biosocial Theory of BPD refers to a transaction between biology and environment that contributes to the development of emotion dysregulation and the overall areas of dysregulation seen in BPD.
- Biology: Everyone’s brain and biology are different. A person with BPD may be more emotionally vulnerable, meaning they may experience greater sensitivity, intensity, and reactivity to emotional situations. Emotions may also linger longer, making it harder to recover and return to baseline after a stressor.
- Environment: When emotional vulnerability interacts with an invalidating environment, it can contribute to the development of BPD. Invalidation can come from anyone in a person’s environment and may take many forms, including ignoring, dismissing, minimizing, or making light of problems; treating emotional reactions as character flaws; or only responding to distress when someone becomes highly emotional.
Can borderline personality disorder get better?: Research shows that evidence-based Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) can significantly reduce emotion dysregulation and other symptoms of borderline personality disorder. DBT has also been adapted for different ages, symptoms, and diagnoses beyond BPD, and DBT skills are commonly incorporated into other cognitive behavioral therapies.
BPD Therapy in Green Bay
Green Bay Location:
321 Saint George Street
Green Bay, WI, 54302
Treatment is tailored to your symptoms and individual patterns of emotion, behavior, and relationship concerns that may be keeping you stuck. The goal of DBT is to help you regulate intense emotions, respond more effectively to difficult situations, build healthier relationships, and create a life that feels worth living.