Hi Heronbird,
Thanks for providing this interesting link. The article mentions that this type of therapy is called Niche Therapy in the US so I googled niche therapy and didn't come up with anything.
The potential of the treatment has yet to be established, but most of our experience has been with chronic, apparently intractable, psychiatric disorders in which therapeutic despair has become the norm and ‘ holding’ the patient in an unsatisfactory equilibrium is the best that seems to be attainable. Many of these patients are under the care of assertive outreach teams, have comorbidity including major psychoses, and have personality disorders and a propensity to violence
I can see how, having tried many other therapies and treatments, that this might offer some hope to folks who are very seriously disabled with their mental illness.
The aspect of fitting the environment to the patient, to fill their needs to have (from what I read in the article) far fewer challenges with their home environment, seems like it could be of benefit to those who are incapable of handling much of anything.
From my own perspective, in my dBPDSD22's case I'm thinking this type of therapy would not be a good fit. My SD is currently doing well, sober, employed, housed, maintaining her interpersonal relationships with no current crises, so in this current cycle, we are experiencing "BPD lite".
Part of my SD's challenges in life have come from being indulged in her earlier years. She learned that being difficult and stubborn and acting out could allow her to avoid challenge. She avoids challenge to prevent herself from feeling the pain of her insecurities and the low self-esteem is, basically, born of not facing her challenges (and succeeding OR not succeeding and sitting with the feelings and seeing that the world doesn't fall apart as a result).
I think what my SD needs in therapy is a safe place to BE CHALLENGED because left on her own (and in an enabling environment) she will not challenge herself and she becomes OK with worsening behaviors, behaviors that are maladaptive to the society that she needs to fit into, for her own sake.
Without being challenged she cannot learn how to tolerate how it feels to go about her life with her skin so exposed and because my SD is so fragile in her own psyche she easily falls apart but doesn't know what to do except maladaptive stuff. Therapy, for her, needs to include learning real tools for coping with the world.
My SD is not as sick as a lot of people here and the article speaks more to helping folks with bigger problems such as schizophrenia etc. I know there are members here whose loved ones are in much more crises than my loved one. I would love to hear from those with more seriously impaired loved ones if this therapy might seem like it would help.
Also curious if anyone else here in the US has heard of niche therapy. I was surprised not to find anything on google about it. I went about two pages in and quit!
Thursday
