Treatment for BPD usually involves some type of psychological therapy, also known as psychotherapy. There are lots of different types of psychotherapy, but they all involve taking time to help you get
a better understanding of how you think and feel.
Dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT)
- You are particularly emotionally vulnerablef for example, low levels of stress make you feel extremely anxious
- You grew up in an environment where your emotions were dismissed by those around you – for example, a parent may have told you that you had no right to feel sad or you were just “being silly” if you complained of feelings of anxiety or stress
Mentalisation-based therapy (MBT)
MBT is based on the concept that people with BPD have a poor capacity to mentalise
Mentalisation is the ability to think about thinking. This means examining your own thoughts and beliefs, and assessing whether they’re useful, realistic and based on reality.
For example, many people with BPD will have a sudden urge to self-harm and then fulfil that urge without questioning it. They lack the ability to “step back” from that urge and say to themselves: “That’s not a healthy way of thinking and I’m only thinking this way because I’m upset.”