How do I find a counselor specialized in personality disorders like Borderline?

[O'Maria]

One counselor suggested that I start therapy myself and bring my bf in later for family therapy. Again, this counselor did not know much about BPD and didnt think of it as a common disease. All counselors agree that my bf is ill and needs help. He even threated to kill himself so all therapists take him seriously. But its not only depression or suicidal thinking, its combined with rage and verbal abuse, jealosy, anxiety, fear of abandonment. Many of you believe in individual therapy and I am almost sure I need to work individually to cure my Post stress symptoms.

My problem is really to get someone (other than this board) understand what went on in the house cause most of the horror scenes occur in a private home. If you ask my bf he tends to "forget" and cannot recall the sequence of events. He feels ashamed at times but then the anger comes out and there is no resolution or discussion or agreement how to build a better relationship.

I am in a situation where my emotional health is jeopardized. I know I have to be the stronger one and I believe I am. But not without help.   

[PotentiallyKevin]

Rick22,

No laughing coming from me, I really think you are onto something. As I stated before, I believe that borderline and other pds (hell, almost all psychiatric problems) should be adequately treated in both the "conscious" and "subconscious" states.

When I was treated exclusively with CBT - the theory of change - it focused on the here and now. The mindset of CBT is yes, your past may suck, and may have led you to where you are today, but who cares, you are here now, AND CAN CHANGE. Basically, according to CBT, your past isn't relevant. The problem with this mentality is that the wounds were still very real and still festering. Although CBT did change me immensely and taught me invaluable skills, I was still very wounded and am not surprised that these issues resurfaced years later when my borderline gf helped expose them.

Since then, I have been working on my core wounds. Thankfully I am one who is able to do a lot of self-therapy and introspection - I am really not afraid of confronting my past or my inner demons, as Roosevelt put it best, "what do you have to fear, but fear itself?"

With the thinking and behavioral techniques that CBT taught me, combined with properly confronting my wounds and demons, I am starting to feel completely whole again.

This is definitely how I view therapists should treat BPD. A long time ago, I wrote a post about comparing borderlines to being on a dysfunctional auto-pilot, or not exactly understanding what they are doing... .they are just doing. I was convinced that DBT just helped borderlines become more "functioning auto-pilots" because the core wounds aren't properly addressed. So even though the quality of life would improve for those around the borderline, the borderline herself would still be suffering, even though they had tools to combat acting out destructive impulses. Of course this is much better for them as well, because they would avoid a lot of detrimental consequences.

But, If a borderline somehow does accept a trauma based therapy, and the core wounds are addressed and properly dealt with, I still feel that the borderline is very likely to relapse without the necessary skills that a CBT/DBT program teaches to combat feelings and emotions - no matter how much the wounds were have thought to have healed.

It is clear that both are needed. A good DBT specialist understands this, and tries to integrate parts of core healing into the regime.

I have no reason to believe that hypnotherapy couldn't be powerful tool to tap into the unconscious and find the source of the core deficiencies. I really think you are onto something here, especially since the borderline mind is very susceptible to being hypnotized.

Try to encourage your wife to meditate as well. Stick with the Yoga, have her take art classes. Anything to stimulate mental and emotional awareness is a plus. I wish that while I had her in my life I would have understood exactly the nature of BPD. Unfortunately when I was the punching-bag, all I could think about was this crazy psycho biatch won't stop hurting me - what can I do to make her stop.

Oh well, I am through thinking the shoulda coulda woulda's, I did the best I could have done due to the circumstances and lack of understanding.

[O'Maria]

Sounds like BPDs (and other PDs) are hard to treat. Very few on this board believe in full recovery with CBT or any other form of therapy and meds. I agree that we need to use hypnotherapy and other alternative forms of therapy to modify their way of thinking if that is ever possible. I noticed its hard to make them aware of their own actions. First its rage and then its complete rejection so how do you reach out to these people?

All non-BPDs need their own therapist to stay strong, especially if they want to continue their relationships with these chaotic people.

 

[SeaCliff]

As Borderlines already act somewhat "childlike" partly due to their own childhood traumas and lowered emotional intelligence skills, then possibly hypnotherapy treatements (coupled with other long term therapy treatments) may be able to help them resolve some of their earlier childhood trauma issues via their subconscious mind. Has anyone here on this board ever tried hypnotherapy treatments for themselves, or for their significant others?

I know people who overcame their fear of public speaking, lost weight after everything else failed, and became much more confident people after their own hypnotherapy treatments. I just don't know anyone personally who tried it in order to improve their personality disorder(s). Our state of being is controlled much more by our subconscious mind than our conscious mind, and we tend to perceive our "reality" more so through our subconscious thought processes so these treatments may be helpful.

Linked here are two short videos (1 1/2 minutes and 3 1/2 minutes - please note there are several other hypnotherapy videos on this same YouTube page) on hypnotherapy and Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP). Again, these hypnotherapists try to find the ROOT CAUSE of their patient's respective fears which usually began back in childhood. This guy's treatment technique is very lighthearted, but seemingly effective with his patients who had a massive fear of needles as well as tremendous self-loathing and relationship problems. Video Link Here -

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRDwhqXWu-A&feature=related   (Hypnotherapy - 90 seconds).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCrdcwr-X50&feature=related  (NLP "Anchors" - Chaining Anchors to overcome a break-up).

If you are familiar with the motivational "guru" Anthony Robbins, he uses the same NLP training (one of the primary tools used in hypnotherapy) in his own books and seminars. I grew up following Norman Vincent Peale, Og Mandino, Dale Carnegie, and even Anthony Robbins. They each offer some decent tools to use in how to overcome any fears combined with the positive of positive thinking through various visualization (and modified though process) techniques. If you "see" the success in your mind first, your body tends to follow at a later date as you expect to succeed or improve.

[O'Maria]

Rick22,

The root cause is in the childhood traumas. No doubt.

The emotional imbalance is so obvious. Many times I felt that I am dealing with a teenager, not an adult male. Maybe the trauma stopped the emotional development and the environment made them sick. They don't know how to communicate and definitely not at an emotional level. Anything emotional is stressful for them. 

My bf didnt remember the details or didnt know what happened to him as a child. Maybe hypnosis can help with recall. He got angry as soon as I touched any childhood subject and normal problem shooting was not possible.

I have seen a woman being hypnotized in front of an audience and she said it was like falling asleep. She didnt remember what the therapist talked about.