Cycle 6 - Smarter Than BPD - Main Text Quiz

Understanding and Reflecting on Emotions in Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)

• Reflecting on past events can increase self-awareness and help individuals witness how they interpret life events and how their emotions and behaviors follow from those interpretations.
• Individuals with BPD tend to interpret life events quickly and habitually, leading to feelings of guilt, shame, and fear of abandonment.
• BPD reactions are commonly aggressive or passive-aggressive, resulting in ongoing relationship struggles and ineffective problem-solving.
• The inability to become a non-judgmental observer of thoughts, emotions, and bodily processes is a significant issue for individuals with BPD.
• Learning to become a non-judgmental observer can give individuals with BPD more power to adjust how they respond to situations.
• Impulsive reactions and behaviors often lead to guilt and shame and can damage relationships.
• Things can happen so quickly without awareness that it impairs the ability to choose an effective response in life situations.
• Individuals with BPD and those in relationships with them may not understand how people can be blind to themselves and how to work through painful emotions and communicate skillfully.
• Validation can be a powerful skill for individuals with BPD to practice on themselves and for caring others to assist them.
• Self-reflection and applying diagrams to stressful situations can help individuals with BPD develop an ability to self-reflect.
• BPD is an interactional disorder, meaning healthy interaction patterns with self and others do not yet exist, but individuals can change their patterns and improve their life experiences.
• Ignoring mental health learning can lead to ongoing self-destruction and relationship destruction.