Author(s): CHAPMAN A

Health & Self-help

One of the more serious and hard-to-treat mental problems, borderline personality disorder (BPD) is also one of the most dangerous. Seventy-five percent of people with BPD will attempt suicide at some point, and ten percent ultimately take their own lives. Living with the symptoms of BPD is obviously a terrible burden for anyone, but receiving a BPD diagnosis and negotiating the necessary treatment can itself be a bewildering and painful process.This compassionate book offers people with BPD a detailed guide to the disorder and a point-by-point plan to the treatment and condition-management process. The book is organized as a series of answers to questions common to BPD sufferers: What is BPD? How long does it last? What other problems co-occur with BPD? Overviews of what we currently know about BPD make up the first section of the book. Later chapters cover several common treatment approaches to BPD: dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT), mentalization-based therapy (MBT), and medical treatment using psychoactive drugs. In the last sections of the book, readers learn a range of day-to-day coping skills that can help moderate the symptoms of BPD.