A personality disorder is a pattern of feelings and behaviors considered by the person who experiences as appropriate and justified, although these feelings and behaviors cause numerous problems in The life of her. The borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a disorder characterized by inappropriate or extreme emotional reactions, impulsive behaviors, and a history of unstable relationships. Sudden mood swings, impulsiveness, and extreme reactions interfere with the life of the person: school, work, interpersonal relationships... In this Online Psychology article we explain the Symptoms, Causes, and Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder.
Index
- Symptoms of borderline personality disorder
- Causes of borderline personality treatment
- Treatment for BPD
- Borderline personality disorder and suicide
Symptoms of borderline personality disorder.
The symptoms of borderline personality disorder vary from case to case but it is a disorder that is usually more common in women. Common symptoms are:
- Feelings of loneliness, boredom, or emptiness
- Difficulty empathizing with others
- Very unstable relationships that can change abruptly
- Fear of being abandoned or rejected, including extreme emotional reactions to actual or perceived abandonment
- Risky, self-destructive, impulsive behaviors, including reckless driving, drugs, or alcohol
- Hostility
- Unstable goals and aspirations
- Unstable, distorted, or dysfunctional self-image
Many people may experience one or two of the above symptoms, but a person with borderline personality disorder will experience many of the symptoms throughout his life.
A characteristic of this disorder is that a person with this disorder craves closeness, but your intense and unstable emotional responses cause others to leave in the long run moving away. If you feel identified with these symptoms, you can perform the borderline personality disorder test.
In this other article we discover you how to help someone with borderline personality disorder so that you know how to act in the event that a relative of yours suffers from this condition.
Causes of borderline personality treatment.
There is no single reason why some people develop borderline personality disorder. Researchers speak of a combination of factors:
Traumatic events
People diagnosed with this disorder usually having suffered traumatic experiences in her life, for example:
- Frequent feelings of fear, disappointment, feeling invalidated or unsupported
- Family difficulties or instability, such as living with a parent who has an addiction
- Sexual, physical, or emotional abuse (or neglect)
- Lose a parent
A person who has undergone such experiences may develop coping strategies or beliefs about himself and other people, which are inappropriate.
It must be remembered that borderline personality disorder can occur in a person who does not have a traumatic life history or who has had other types of difficulties in her life.
Genetic factors
There is some evidence to support that borderline personality disorder has a genetic origin, a The person is more likely to develop the disorder if someone in their close family also does it. have. But, it is very difficult to know exactly whether borderline disorder is inherited or it is caused by other factors, such as the environment in which you grow up or the ways of thinking, strategies and behaviors that you learn from the people around you.
It is possible that a combination of factors is the cause. The genetic factor can make the person more vulnerable to developing borderline disorder, but this vulnerability can be triggered and become a problem by a series of traumatic events or stressful.
Treatment for BPD.
We are now going to address which is the best treatment for borderline personality disorder and that, thus, you can know how to deal with this situation:
Psychological treatment
Clinical guidelines recommend psychological therapy to treat this disorder. Some of the most recommended psychological therapies are:
- Dialectical therapy: can be given both individually or in groups. The main objective is to learn appropriate skills or strategies to deal with emotions. This therapy has also been especially recommended, in cases in which the person exhibits self-injurious behaviors.
- Mentalization-based therapy: the objective is to recognize and understand one's own and other people's mental states, as well as to examine one's thoughts towards oneself and others.
- Cognitive behavioral therapy: the goal is to help the person understand how her thoughts and beliefs can affect her feelings and behaviors.
Pharmacotherapy
Psychotropic drugs are not recommended to treat the specific symptoms of borderline personality disorder, as there are no known effective medications. But, psychotropic drugs can be prescribed for other conditions that the person presents, such as tranquilizers, anxiolytics ...
Borderline personality disorder and suicide.
Approximately 80% of people diagnosed With borderline personality disorder, they exhibit suicide-related behaviors, including suicide attempts, cutting, burning, and other types of self-injurious behaviors. People with borderline disorder are at higher risk for suicide than other personality disorders.
There are some factors that make suicide common in people with borderline disorder:
- Borderline disorder is associated with negative experiences very emotionally intense. These experiences are very damaging to the person and the person can look for ways to reduce emotional pain, such as substance abuse and suicide.
- What's more, it is a chronic disorder. Chronic conditions are usually more related to suicide, since the person does not improve without treatment. The condition, although stable, is present throughout the years.
- Borderline disorder can co-occur with other disorders, such as bipolar, depression, substance abuse... In these cases, the risk of suicide increases.
- As we said before, bipolar disorder is associated with impulsivity or with a tendency to act quickly without thinking about the consequences. This may be one reason why suicide is common in borderline disorder. People with borderline disorder can commit suicidal behavior at an emotionally intense time.
This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
If you want to read more articles similar to Borderline personality disorder: symptoms, causes and treatment, we recommend that you enter our category of Clinical psychology.
