Borderline Personality Disorder: Regulation, Nurturance, and Compassion

07.18.2022 - By Rick Hanson, Ph.D., Forrest Hanson Play

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One of the most important and challenging skills we can develop is learning to regulate our strong emotions. While it’s very natural to have fluctuations in how we feel about others and ourselves, for some people these ups and downs are particularly intense. At clinical levels, this is known as Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).

BPD is characterized by a pattern of instability in a person’s emotions, moods, behavior, self-image, and relationships. BPD is fairly common, and it's even more common for "borderline-y tendencies" to show up in our lives. On this episode of Being Well, Dr. Rick and Forrest Hanson explore what to do when these tendencies show up, how to cultivate a healthy balance of sensitivity and tolerance to distress, regulating and nurturing ourselves, and how to navigate relationships with others when they exhibit borderline tendencies.

As a disclaimer, formal diagnosis of any condition should be done with a medical professional working directly with the person in question. This podcast episode is not a substitute for that.

Watch the Episode: Prefer watching video? You can watch this episode on YouTube.

Key Topics:

0:00: Introduction

2:00: What are "borderline tendencies"?

6:50: 9 Symptoms of BPD

9:10: The what, why, and how of mental health

11:25: Childhood influences on borderline tendencies

15:05: Instability, impulsivity, and the drive for reassurance

25:00: Recognizing varying degrees of borderline patterns

27:00: Practical tips–regulation and nurturance

32:50: Boundaries, and avoiding spiraling

37:50: Acceptance, and the desire for change

40:35: Sensitivity and distress tolerance

45:00: What to do when you notice borderline tendencies in a relationship

51:00: Recognizing how much someone's nature is going to change

53:35: Treatability

54:50: Recap

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