MENTAL HEALTH AND WELLNESS
Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) Treatment in San Diego
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) affects the way you feel about yourself and the people around you. Problems with self-image, controlling emotions, and controlling behaviors stemming from BPD can heavily impact one’s relationships with others.
As one of the most misunderstood, most stigmatized and most misdiagnosed mental health disorders, BPD all too often leaves those diagnosed with it, as well as their loved ones, feeling confused, alone, and hopeless.
Solara Mental Health strives to free clients from these feelings. Our Borderline Personality Disorder Treatment Center in San Diego is a comprehensive, nuanced and specialized treatment program. Our Behavioral Health and Psychiatric Treatment Center employ a combination of individual psychotherapy, group therapy, holistic therapies, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), and dialectical behavior therapy (DBT).
Through these therapeutic modalities, clients learn the tools needed to cope with upsetting situations, develop a healthy self-image, handle and solve interpersonal conflict and come to a more complete, nuanced view of the world. With these tools, clients come to learn that they are capable of lasting change, allowing them to begin the process of healing and develop emotional security.
Symptoms and Causes of Borderline Personality Disorder
Signs and symptoms of BPD include:
- Extreme mood swings — a key symptom of borderline personality disorder. People with this disorder often feel like they’re not in control of their emotions. Small things can trigger big feelings and affect their relationships. Personal identity or personality can also feel less settled and secure.
- Self-image issues — dramatically varying from day to day. Even preferences can change frequently making the individual feel nervous, confused and uncertain. A typical healthy person can quickly recover from emotional upset. But, someone with BPD often can’t.
- Behavioral issues — Trying to self-soothe and calm down ineffectively can lead to a range of other issues. These include substance abuse, taking dangerous actions, and unwanted social behavior.
- Unwanted social behavior — potentially extremes too. For example, being reclusive and withdrawing from social situations entirely. Impulsive shopping sprees that are beyond personal budget are common. Having sexual encounters for negative emotional reasons is also an unfortunately common occurrence. When someone with BPD is experiencing turbulent emotions they may say hurtful things. BPD sufferers often do things they later regret.
- Unstable relationships — due to the issues above. A person with BPD might idealize someone at one point in time, then quickly change their perspective and believe that same person is heartless and mean.
BPD may seem like an inescapable situation. But, there are actually some very effective treatments for borderline personality disorder.
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) treatment starts with recognizing the symptoms. Then, treatment is most commonly a combined program of medication and psychotherapy. Sometimes it’s recommended for BPD patients to spend some time in hospital.
Diagnosis
Individuals who need borderline personality disorder (BPD) treatment are diagnosed by mental health professionals. Long-term treatment is essential and can have good outcomes. For the best results, psychotherapy is combined with peer and family support. It is also supplemented with medication that addresses the suffers most disruptive symptoms.
It’s not uncommon for other disorders to also be present alongside BPD. Common concurrent disorders are:
- Depression
- Post-traumatic stress disorder
- Substance abuse disorders
- Eating disorders
- Sleep disorders
Treatment programs usually change over time. Sometimes concurrent conditions either improve or worsen. This leads to the type of care evolving as the patient goes into remission.
Treatment Options
The most popular treatment for BPD is talking therapy. This typically includes just one or two therapy sessions per week.
At these appointments, a therapist and the patient sit together. They discuss the best ways to tackle the challenges which are caused by BPD. For talking therapy to be effective, the patient needs to fully trust their psychotherapist. Patients must be able to speak openly about their feelings and experiences.
When it comes to borderline personality disorder, extreme feelings can have serious consequences. For example, managing anger can become important to reduce arguments or physical altercations. Getting control of upset and sadness can decrease the chance of suicide
There’s some good news though. Studies suggest that when a person with BPD goes into remission, they remain in remission. That means treatment can dramatically reduce symptoms in the long term.
Therapy
Psychotherapy is perhaps the most popular treatment for borderline personality disorder. That’s because it can directly treat the emotional turbulence associated with BPD.
Psychotherapists often refer to the emotional turbulence experienced by patients as dysregulation. The above types of psychotherapy, including DBT, CBT, BPD and MBT all seek to effectively relieve dysregulation. They offer patients coping skills.
The most commonly used therapies for BPD include:
- Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) — This helps patients by encouraging them to pay closer attention to their present emotions. Then, they can either balance or accept their feelings.
- Mentalization-based therapy (MBT) — This therapy helps people with borderline personality disorder to understand other people’s thoughts and feelings.
- Transference-focused therapy (TFP) — This therapy provides patients with models of behavior. Through their relationship with the therapist, they can learn how to deal with real situations.
Medication
There is currently no medication that has been developed for borderline personality disorder. However, there are a lot of symptoms associated with this mental health problem. So, some medications are often prescribed in combination.
Medication alone doesn’t provide a cure for borderline personality disorder. Depression, anxiety and acting irrationally are traits that also accompany the disorder. So, medication should be provided to treat all a person’s mental health challenges.
Where medication is recommended there are a lot of options, but many carry side-effects. In addition to medication, self-care activities can make a big difference.
Self Help Tips
If an individual can recognize their own destructive behaviors it doesn’t necessarily make it easier to get them under control.
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) treatment can begin with the patient. If you think you suffer from borderline personality disorder you may find these self-help tips useful.
- Connect with other BPD sufferers — There are many charities and forums for you to connect to other people diagnosed with BPD and feel less alone.
- Take care of your physical health to improve your mental health — Exercise may be the furthest thing from your mind when you feel intense emotions but it could do the most good.
- Avoid non-prescription drugs and alcohol — Non-prescription drugs and alcohol can interact with prescription drugs and have an adverse effect on mood. It’s best to stay sober if you have BPD.
- Improve your self-care routines — Schedule sleep and eat healthily to feel better.
Get Treatment for BPD in San Diego
With help, one’s Borderline Personality Disorder condition can improve considerably. It just takes time and effort. Through years of experience, our mental health treatment center has learned how to provides the entire spectrum of care for our clients.
From inpatient to outpatient, from transitional living to a long-term aftercare plan, our program has been designed to free our clients from the clutches of Borderline Personality Disorder.
Want to speak to someone experienced and qualified about your condition? Call our San Diego Borderline Personality Disorder Treatment Center now: 844-206-9722.
