Most mental health practitioners are familiar with the diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) – but if you’re not trained in specialist treatments for BPD, can you still be helpful to this group of people? In this episode, Peregrine Research Associate Dr Caitlin Miller interviews Psychologist and Research Fellow at Project Air Strategy for Personality Disorders, Dr Nick Day, and Staff Specialist Psychiatrist at the Centre for Psychotherapy, Dr Nick Bendit. Nick Day and Nick Bendit speak about what drives emotional storms and crises for people with a diagnosis of BPD, how our typical approaches as mental health practitioners can actually be unhelpful for people with BPD – and what to do instead. They discuss the common elements of treatment approaches, how to manage risk concerns and what they mean when they tell practitioners to “follow the love”.
Resources
Practice Toolkit: Working with People with a Diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder.
Project Air Strategy for Personality Disorders provides online learning for mental health practitioners, helpful resources for professionals, consumers and carers, treatment guidelines and intervention manuals.
Book: Half in Love with Death: Managing the Chronically Suicidal Patient by Joel Paris. Note that this book strongly recommends against hospitalisation for people with chronic suicidality, however when considered carefully, hospitalisation may be helpful in some instances, as discussed in the episode
Spectrum Personality Disorder service includes resources for health professionals and consumers.
Australian BPD Foundation provides support and advocacy for people with a diagnosis of BPD.
