Borderline Personality Disorder
April 29th, 2010
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by Dr. Mike · Filed Under: How Emotional Stuff Works · Karen Gosling
| A Learning Opportunity: Welcome to “How Emotional Stuff Works”. In this series of Q&A Karen Gosling expands upon questions that simply seek information and those that may trouble you. This is an important call-to-action for people wanting to stay well and have healthy relationships, and the answers are relevant no matter where you live in the world.
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Q I don’t know… I suspect my wife has symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). Is Gosling International effective in providing a solution for her, or is there someone else able to do a better job? Are the chances of recovery good?
A Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a condition with severe long-term implications for relationships as a person with BPD needs a lot of understanding and tolerance of their behaviors. Yes, Karen Gosling is able to assist. Indeed she works already with several people suffering BPD.
In essence, the person may exhibit no real symptoms for long periods of time, however, under stress, he or she may experience intense feelings of deprivation and insecurity, and be prone to periods of rage. This seriously affects intimate and social relationships. An important element in therapy is non-judgement while the person ventilates their feelings and perceptions of life. This is necessary before self-awareness can be gained, by gently confronting the person to see things from another’s perspective.
Effective treatment of BPD will often include a combination of medication and cognitive behavioral therapy to assist the person stabilize their mood-disturbance and increase tolerance of anxiety. To this end, we are frequently in contact with doctors, psychologists, and psychiatrists for purposes of referral to ensure the person receives the best holistic care.
As cognitive-behavioral counselors, Gosling International’s counselors helps clients identify events (memory, thoughts, values, beliefs, expectations) in their lives that generate pain or negative emotion (stress) and produce excess adrenalin in the body. We assist clients to understand the physiological effect of excess adrenalin on their body and through increased awareness of their identity help clients to better manage their emotion state.
Effective outcomes for counseling depend upon a number of variables including a person’s willingness and readiness to receive counseling, their current emotional state, and receptivity to taking medication. Cognitive behavioral counseling is effective to help a client discover and correct the cause of inappropriate behavior and can serve as an appropriate avenue for referral point to other more specific areas of mental health care identified by an experienced counselor.
