UNIVERSITY RESEARCH PROJECT: Misdiagnosis and mistreatment of BPD

[Valerie Porr, M.A.]

Topic:

The purpose of the survey  is to understand the real life experiences of how  people with BPD are diagnosed and treated in today's mental health system.

Qualifications:

Researchers at TARA are looking for:

• Family members of Individuals diagnosed with borderline personality disorder to participate in a research study.

• English-speaking respondents,

• the family member with BPD must either be diagnosed or treated at some point for symptoms similar to BPD.

Testing

This is an anonymous online survey that should take approximately 20-30 minutes to complete. You may only participate in the study one time

Incentive:

None

Sponsor:

The Treatment and Research Advancements Association for Personality Disorder, TARA APD, is a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to foster education and research in the field of personality disorder, specifically but not exclusively Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD); to support research into the causes, psychobiology and treatment of personality disorders; to support and encourage educational programs and endeavors targeting mental health professionals, consumers of mental health services, families and/or the community at large in order to reduce stigma and increase awareness of personality disorder, to disseminate available information on etiology and treatment and to lawfully advocate for accomplishments of these goals.

Thank you for your assistance,

Valerie Porr, M.A.

Principal Researcher

The survey can be found at:

[HappyChappy]

Has anyone ever formaly researched the effects of being a child of someone with a PD ? Or formaly put together a  recovery program recognised by the NHS or smiliar ?

[Valerie Porr, M.A.]

TARA National Association for Personality Disorder has been operating programs for families over the last 20 years. We came to realize that specific groups such as couples, parents, siblings and people who have a parent with BPD each have specific problems which need to be addressed. We have developed psycho-education programs for partners, parents, siblings and people with BPD.

We have found that there is little or no information available on how to cope when your parent has BPD. There are two self help books available, one of which we do not recommend (Understanding the Borderline Mother). From our point of view, the biggest difficulty is that the child of a person with BPD generally loves their parent and goes to that parent for comfort and support yet receives capricious responses that are totally confusing and in the long run damaging. The child has every right to be angry with the parent yet is still attached to the parent. This is the most difficult emotional situation. In our classes we try to help the child forgive the parent as the parent has a disorder and certainly does not have the intention to harm the child. At the same time, we have to validate the disappointment, the loss and the grief experienced by the

child of someone with BPD. We bring this relationship up whenever we can at conferences where treatment is discussed. Sadly, there is a paucity of research being done to address this population. It is an ambivalent situation in which the child has to cope with their love while simultaneously acknowledging their anger and the unfairness of the relationship. We would like to validate that this relationship is probably the most difficult of all relationships with a person with BPD.

If anyone has any suggestions as to what is needed to improve the parent-child relationship when a parent has BPD, we would appreciate the input as we, too, struggle with how to help.

Valerie Porr

[justnothing]

If anyone has any suggestions as to what is needed to improve the parent-child relationship when a parent has BPD, we would appreciate the input as we, too, struggle with how to help.

Valerie Porr

Well, there’s a lot of advice all over this site for family members on how to cope with loved ones with BPD… but seeing as you guys work with families I’ve got to ask… have you tried talking to or working with parents who have BPD on their part of the relationship?

Something I’ve always found slightly frustrating about support sites for family members is that there seems to be no expectation at all from the pwBPD, even though it takes two to make a relationship work.

Me and my mother both had BPD and for my own part I tried my best to try to find a balance between keeping her happy and keeping myself safe… and in the end it proved impossible to find a healthy balance between the two because she wasn’t doing any work of her own (or maybe her issues were bad enough that she wasn’t able to, idk).

Now in a setting like the one you mentioned, where professionals work with parents and children, one of my suggestions would be educating the parents on how to gain more emotional independence from their children (this may not be an issue for all BPD/child relationships but it is for many). I believe that could probably be achieved if the BPD parent can be taught both how to self sooth and how to improve on and expand their relationships with the other people in their lives as a way of not putting all their emotional eggs in one basket. These are a couple of the things I’ve done for myself as a way of breaking away from the enmeshment with my mother and I tried to encourage her to make friends of her own too but unfortunately her issues with people made that too hard for her. Then again, she wasn’t at all self-aware and refused to get professional help so I assume the parents you work with will be different and it should probably be a lot easier to get them to try to make efforts in that direction.

Anyway, I guess what I’m saying is that my suggestion is to work with each member of the family, with and without BPD, on the things they could each do to improve their part of the relationship and not just the ones that don’t have BPD.

Of course, the ones with BPD might need to be approached differently because many might start off with “oh gosh, you’re absolutely right, I see my mistakes now and will work right away at correcting them!” and then it’ll turn out that they didn’t really fully understand and didn’t really have the tools to make corrections… so that might be a slower process that might need to be approached more carefully… but I do believe it’s possible if it’s done with outsider intervention like what you mentioned.

[livednlearned]

There are two self help books available, one of which we do not recommend (Understanding the Borderline Mother)

Is there anything in particular with Understanding the Borderline Mother that we should be aware of? I am only through the first half and am not sure what to make of all the comparisons with fairy tales. Do you think the book might focus on validation without helping children with BPD mothers process the anger and hurt?

[PleaseValidate]

There are two self help books available, one of which we do not recommend (Understanding the Borderline Mother)

Is there anything in particular with Understanding the Borderline Mother that we should be aware of? I am only through the first half and am not sure what to make of all the comparisons with fairy tales. Do you think the book might focus on validation without helping children with BPD mothers process the anger and hurt?

I have a  similar question as to why you do not recommend this book. I don't have any problem with it not helping children to process the anger and hurt as I would not expect that from the title. I see it more as a technical book for the sole purpose of explaining the behaviors and consequences.

As for feedback,  I am not well enough aware of your organization. In general, I think that clinicians need to realize that reunification is not always the adult child's goal. I've seen too many clinicians push for that which can immensely set back the child's progress and add to their lack of validation.

Counselors, social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, etc need better training in general regarding the stigma, yet often necessity, that choosing "no contact," especially with a mother, can bring from society. This is not something that any of the licensing exams include to my knowledge. I think that it is human nature to want and expect a child to be in contact with their mother and even most professionals are not immune to this.