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Borderline Personality Disorder

Borderline personality disorder (BPD): is a serious mental disorder marked by a pattern of: ongoing instability in moods, behavior, self-image, and functioning. These behaviors often cause impulsive actions and unstable relationships. A person with BPD may experience intense episodes of anger, depression, and anxiety that may last from only a few hours to days. Some of those effected by BPD also have high rates of co-occurring mental disorders such as: mood disorders, anxiety disorders, and eating disorders, along with substance abuse, self-harm, suicidal thinking and behaviors, and suicide. There are some mental health experts now generally agree that the label "borderline personality disorder" is very misleading.  However, a more accurate term does not exist yet.

 

Signs and Symptoms of Borderline personality disorder:

  • Extreme mood swings

  • Can display uncertainty about who they are

  • Interests and values can change rapidly

  • Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment

  • A pattern of intense and unstable relationships with family, friends, and loved ones, often swinging from extreme closeness and love (idealization) to extreme dislike or anger (devaluation)

  • Distorted and unstable self-image or sense of self

  • Impulsive and often dangerous behaviors, such as spending sprees, unsafe sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, and binge eating

  • Recurring suicidal behaviors or threats or self-harming behavior, such as cutting

  • Intense and highly changeable moods, with each episode lasting from a few hours to a few days

  • Chronic feelings of emptiness

  • Inappropriate, intense anger or problems controlling anger

  • Having stress-related paranoid thoughts

  • Having severe dissociative symptoms, such as feeling cut off from oneself, observing oneself from outside the body, or losing touch with reality

 

Common Populations/ Who is at Risk and Vulnerable to Borderline personality disorder:

The causes of BPD are not yet clear, but research suggests that genetic, brain, environmental and social factors are likely to be involved.

Genetics: BPD is about five times more likely to occur if a person has a close family member (first-degree biological relatives) with the disorder.

Environmental and Social Factors: Many people with BPD report experiencing traumatic life events, such as abuse or abandonment during childhood. Others may have been exposed to unstable relationships and hostile conflicts. However, some people with BPD do not have a history of trauma. And, many people with a history of traumatic life events do not have BPD.

Brain Factors: Studies show that people with BPD have structural and functional changes in the brain, especially in the areas that control impulses and emotional regulation. However, some people with similar changes in the brain do not have BPD. More research is needed to understand the relationship between brain structure and function and BPD.

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Treatment:

Historically difficult to treat but can be helped through medication and Therapy.

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Berks County Resources:

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Emotional Wellness LLC

  • 3933 Perkiomen Ave Suite 102

       Reading, Pennsylvania 19606

       Call Mrs. Denise Heifer

       (610) 850-9199 ext. 100

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Optimum Care Counseling & Wellness Solutions, LLC

  • 4239 Penn Avenue Suite 11

       Sinking Spring, Pennsylvania 19608

       Call Amaro Reyes Garza

       (610) 624-4474

 

Springfield Psychological of Sinking Spring

  • 2909 Windmill Road

       Sinking Spring, Pennsylvania 19608

       Call Our Intake Specialists

       (610) 850-9655

 

Callowhill Family Therapy

  • 244 N 5th Street

       Reading, Pennsylvania 19601

       Call Mr. Bill Marzano

       (610) 915-8071

 

Reading Hospital Spruce Pavilion

  • S 6th Ave & Spruce Street

      West Reading, PA 19611

      (484) 628-8000

 

Center For Mental Health

  • 560 Van Reed Rd

       Wyomissing, PA 19610

       (610) 988-4947

 

NAMI  

  • 640 Centre Ave

       Reading, PA 19605

       (610) 685-3000

 

Greater Reading Mental Health Alliance (An affiliate of Mental Health America)

  • 1234 Penn Ave

        Reading, PA 19610

        (610) 775-3000

 

Greater Lehigh Valley Resources:

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NAMI  

  • 802 W Broad St, Bethlehem, PA 18018

       (610) 882-2102

 

Center for Integrated Behavioral Health

  • 1 West Broad St, Suite 810

       Bethlehem, PA 18018​

http://www.centerforibh.com/programs-services/dialectical-behavior-therapy-dbt-skills-program/

 

Inner Resources Counseling Inc.

  • 807 West Broad Street

       Bethlehem, Pennsylvania 18018

       (570) 221-6852

 

Bethlehem Counseling Associates

  • 2045 Westgate Drive, Suite 304

       Bethlehem, Pennsylvania 18017

       (484) 866-8099

 

Wester Messina

  • Counselor,  LPC,  CAADC, English, Spanish

       35 E Elizabeth Avenue , Suite 29B

       Bethlehem, Pennsylvania 18018

       (484) 652-8239

 

Lily Bay LLC

  • Williams Township

       Pennsylvania 18042

       Ask for Marsha Austin

       (484) 695-2333

 

Lehigh Valley Hospital - Cedar Crest  

  • 1200 S Cedar Crest Blvd

       Allentown, PA 18103

       (610) 402-8000

 

Web Site Resources:

 

Book Resources:

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  • I Hate You -- Don't Leave Me: Understanding the Borderline Personality

Book by Hal Straus and Jerold Jay Kreisman

 

  • Stop Walking on Eggshells

Book by Paul Mason

 

References:

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