Personality DisorderSymptoms & Treatments
What is Personality Disorder?
A diagnosis of a borderline personality disorder can feel overwhelming but what this means is that it has been very difficult to manage your emotions, that you can find relationships to be difficult and that you may have engaged in behaviours to manage the emotional distress such as self-harm.
We think about personality being developed in childhood and therapy usually helps explore earlier experiences to make sense about how it may impact you now. For example, if you were treated badly when young, you may find it really hard to trust others and this may make you want to avoid relationships altogether or find yourself in relationships that you may know are not good for you but hard to break free from.
Having a diagnosis of personality disorder is often misunderstood. It usually means that there are ways that you can react to situations in which your emotions can take over. People with a diagnosis of personality disorder can often experience intense emotions that are difficult to cope with leading often to some self-defeating behaviours such as self-harm and suicide attempts. Such difficulties are often rooted in earlier experiences which can be traumatic and have primed you to view the world in a certain way. This can cause difficulties in relationships with others and make you feel fragmented.
There is much encouraging research that indicates that with a good understanding of your personality together with skills to manage emotions and relationships the negative impact of a personality disorder can be overcome and that you can move towards a life worth living.
Symptoms of Personality Disorder
The symptoms of an Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder varies and often involves emotionally instability. This can consist of poorly managed anger, depression, feelings of emptiness, anxiety or shame.There are often behavioural aspects such as self-harm, suicidal behaviours, substance use or self-defeating behaviours that are used as coping strategies. Relationship difficulties are common with conflict often making life difficulty work and home. People with Personality Disorders are often worried about others leaving them and feeling abandoned and can move between crises and feelings of emptiness.
"You may not have created all your own problems, but you have to solve them anyway"
― Marsha Linehan ―
Therapy for Personality Disorder
Therapy not only explores the origins of such difficulties but gives practical skills to manage your emotions effectively, be effective in your interpersonal relationships and manage the difficult situations that you may face daily. Therapy can help with this so that you can move away from crises to developing a life worth living.
I work within a framework called Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT). This is a set of skills that helps you understand the chain of events that can lead to difficulties in managing emotions and helps teach more adaptive coping skills. The skills taught are emotion regulation, interpersonal effective and distress tolerance as well as core mindfulness skills. This range of skills helps balance the acceptance of life being difficult and stressful as well as aspects that you can change to improve your life. Over time, you can feel more confident to break repeating patterns and move away from feelings of crisis towards achieving your goals.
Dialectical Behavioural Therapy: The Four Options
If you have a problem you have four options:
1. Solve the problem
2. Change your perception
3. Radically accept the situation
4. Stay miserable.
Medication
If medication are required then this can also be arranged through your GP nor psychiatrist. I can discuss directly with your GP to decide what the best medication f would be.
Next steps for overcoming your Personality Disorder
I offer a
free confidential
15 minute telephone consultation before any commitments where we can discuss if therapy is the right approach.
Give me a call today or use the online booking form to setup a free 15 minute telephone consultation and I can discuss how I can help with working through your personality disorder issues.
All calls are completely confidential.
