Borderline Personality Disorder and its Treatment

Emotional self-regulation or emotion regulation is the ability to respond to the ongoing demands of experience with the range of emotions in a manner that is socially tolerable and sufficiently flexible to permit spontaneous reactions as well as the ability to delay spontaneous reactions as needed.

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a serious mental illness which makes self-regulation frequently challenging. It is characterized by intense mood swings and difficulty in relationships. A person who has BPD feels emotions with great intensity, and episodes of anger, anxiety or depression can go on for several days. Difficulty in controlling their emotions can at times result in a person engaging in self-destructive and risky behaviors.

As well as having unstable emotional functioning and unstable interpersonal functioning; individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder have a poorly developed, or unstable self-image, often associated with excessive self-criticism, chronic feelings of emptiness, and dissociative states under stress.

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) cannot be cured, and anyone who enters treatment looking for a quick and easy fix is bound to be disappointed. The very definition of personality disorders as "chronic maladaptive patterns of behavior" implies that symptoms are stable over time; however, recent studies indicate that symptoms improve and may even completely remit over the years.

The good news is that DBT has been found to be effective in treating people with borderline personality disorder. Through the use of DBT Skills, the symptoms of BPD can be effectively managed, monitored, and ultimately reduced in intensity, or entirely eliminated. A person can learn to self-regulate and becomes capable of building a life worth living.