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Overcoming
Borderline
Personality Disorder
A
Family Guide for Healing and Change
Valerie
Porr, M.A.
Borderline
personality disorder (BPD) is characterized by unstable moods,
negative self-image, dangerous impulsivity, and tumultuous relationships.
Many people with BPD excel in academics and careers while revealing
erratic, self-destructive, and sometimes violent behavior only
to those with whom they are intimate. Others have trouble simply
holding down a job or staying in school.
Overcoming
Borderline Personality Disorder is a compassionate and
informative guide to understanding this profoundly unsettling--and
widely misunderstood--mental illness, believed to affect approximately
6% of the general population. Rather than viewing people with
BPD as manipulative opponents in a bitter struggle, or pitying
them as emotional invalids, Valerie Porr cites cutting-edge science
to show that BPD is a true neurobiological disorder and not, as
many come to believe, a character flaw or the result of bad parenting.
Porr then clearly and accessibly explains what BPD is, which therapies
have proven effective, and how to rise above the weighty stigma
associated with the disorder. Offering families and loved ones
supportive guidance that both acknowledges the difficulties they
face and shows how they can be overcome, Porr teaches empirically-supported
and effective coping behaviors and interpersonal skills, such
as new ways of talking about emotions, how to be aware of nonverbal
communication, and validating difficult experiences. These skills
are derived from Dialectical Behavior Therapy and Mentalization-based
Therapy, two evidence-based treatments that have proven highly
successful in reducing family conflict while increasing trust.
Overcoming Borderline Personality Disorder is an
empowering and hopeful resource for those who wish to gain better
understanding of the BPD experience--and to make use of these
insights in day-to-day family interactions.
ISBN:
978-0195379587 * Oxford University Press, 2010 * 396 pages * $35.95
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