personality disorders explained

2. Seek Professional Help
Facilitate the process of obtaining optimal help. It may be necessary that you do
the initial work necessary to set up the first appointment. It may also be helpful if
you agree to go also. Some people with borderline disorder initially refuse to seek
professional help. Provide them with a copy of my book and suggest they read
the first two chapters. This may help them understand their
potential problems well enough to agree to an initial
appointment with a psychiatrist.
Other people with borderline disorder are steadfast in their
refusal of help. This, of course, is a major problem. Dr. Perry
Hoffman, the founding president of the National Education
Alliance for Borderline Personality Disorder (NEA-BPD) offers
this advice: The best way of approaching this problem from
my perspective is for one to accept that you cannot get
someone into treatment. Timing is important as to when
someone might be “open” to hearing the idea. But the bottom line is to free
families of feeling guilty, and to understand that they are not so powerful to
effect that goal. Along that line, relatives need to get help and support for
themselves as they watch their loved one in the throes of the illness.
3. Support the Treatment Program
Once in treatment, encourage and support your loved one
with borderline disorder to regularly attend therapy sessions,
to take medicine as prescribed, to eat, exercise, and rest
appropriately, and to engage in wholesome recreational
activities. If alcohol or other drugs are a problem, strongly
support their efforts to abstain completely from these
substances, and encourage regular attendance in treatment
programs or self-help groups, such as Alcoholics Anonymous.
Remember, there is little hope of improvement of the
symptoms of borderline disorder if alcohol and drugs are
abused. It is very important that you remain persistent in
your efforts to do everything possible to help reduce the risk
of this behaviour, and not enable it.
4. Respond Consistently to Problematic Behaviours
Develop a clear understanding (it may even be written) of the realistic
consequences of recurring, problematic,
destructive behaviours such as episodes of
alcohol and drug abuse, physically selfdamaging
acts, and excessive spending and
gambling. Also, agree beforehand on how
best to respond to threats and acts of selfharm.
These and other problematic behaviours are
often triggered by stressful events that need
to be identified, and a clear plan developed
for handling these events and situations more appropriately and effectively in the
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