Borderline Personality Disorders
I have been in the field of Counseling for many years. I have been responsible for a variety of caseloads and duties. The most challenging for me has been working with individuals experiencing borderline personality disorders. They can make you run in circles without accomplishing anything. When I disagree with another staff member about how to treat a client, it is always about someone with a borderline personality disorder.
The diagnosis can be quite frustrating. The individuals it affects are intelligent. They can read others and can be very manipulative. I once worked at a social service agency dealing with mental health cases involving children. My caseload consisted of 16 such cases. One particular case involved a mom and her daughter; both had been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. It soon became obvious to me that I spend about 30% of my time each month on this one case.
Individuals with borderline personality disorder know how to get others to help them get what they want. They often have very good social skills so they make friends easily. It is amazing that other people will give them money. They also are very convincing, getting others to believe that they have been wronged or persecuted unfairly over and over again. They also enjoy drama. For the mere pleasure of it, they will work hard to create drama and then watch as others try to fit it for them.
The treatment for this disorder is complex, and very long term. Those affected have to learn the appropriate ways to act in given situations. They have to change their methods for relationships. They need to view relationships as a give and take rather than the opportunity to take advantage of someone. These are patterns of behavior that normal people learn early in life. It is important to understand that borderline personality disorder is a behavior issue, not a chemical imbalance. Therefore, medications can’t be prescribed to assist with changing the behaviors.
Behavior modification techniques are useful for borderline personality disorder. The goal is to retrain the behaviors for effective social relations. It is in the best interest of everyone to keep those with borderline personality disorder from individuals who have other mental health issues. This is to prevent them from taking advantage of others who are vulnerable due to their mental illness issues.