Posted by Looney Tunes on August 3, 2008, at 21:40:36
In reply to Re: Borderline Personality Disorder.., posted by Amanda29 on August 3, 2008, at 19:54:53
You know, I want to contradict something you keep implying. You keep implying that BPD is a learned disorder and that by simply changing your behavior, you can change the disorder.
BPD is a result of genetics and an invaidating environment. In the majority of cases, the invalidating environment is abuse or neglect. Because of abuse and neglect or other invalidation, the developmental process of the child is messed up. The child never learns object consistency, never learns appropriate attachment, does not separate from the care-taker properally, etc. All these developmental stages determine the outcome of how one relates as an adult. All these developmental processes determine one's ability to function "normally" in relationships.
If one never learns the object consistency (ie when someone leaves, it is not permentantly gone), as a child, they will have difficulty with it as an adult.
BPD is not learned. BPD is a result of development disruption. As part of this disruption, the child learns to cope in their own way. These coping mechanisms may lead to full-blown BPD symtpoms later.
DBT does attempt to make you learn coping skills, but it CAN NOT remove the developmental disruptions that make relationships so difficult for a BPD.
While I stated that the majority of BPD have been abused, there are also cases where the child might have been colically and cried all the time. The parents could not meet the child's needs all the time, as a result the child expereinced this as invalidation.
By stating that this disorder is something as easy as changing behavior, it is somewhat insulting, because I can guarentee that most BPD would change in an instant if it was that easy.
poster:Looney Tunes
thread:843786
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20080727/msgs/844014.html