Overcoming Borderline Personality Disorder ─ A Family Guide for Healing and Change

"Valerie Porr has championed the cause of people with borderline personality disorder for decades. her understanding of the disorder and its effects on the individuals themselves and their families, partners, and friends is outstanding. This readable and informative book distils her years of experience and her first-hand knoledge of how to help patients and families, providing the practical wisdom that comes only with a genuine understanding of what it is to be `borderline'. This is required reading for anyone, from novice to expert, who seeks an understandin of borderline personality disorder and who wants practical guidance on what helps."---Anthony Bateman, Consultant Psychiatrist and Psychotherapist, Barnet, Enfield, and Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust and Visiting Professor, University College, London

"Overcoming Borderline Personality Disorder by Valerie Porr is like water for a parched land. Few psychiatric disorders are as misunderstood as borderline personality disorder, a condition that can be profoundly disabling to patients and devastating to families. Opinions about what families should do are plentiful, but evidence-based guidance, derived from solid research, is rare. This is what this book delivers. It is an invaluable roadmap for families of patients with BPD."---John Oldham, Chief of Staff, The Menninger Clinic

"An important book for family members of people with BPD."---Larry Siever, Professor of Psychiatry, Mount Sinai School of Medicine

Overcoming Borderline Personality Disorder is a compassionate and informative guide to understanding this profoundly unsettling---and widely misunderstood---mental illness, believed to affect approximately 6% of the general population. Valerie Porr, a mental health educator and advocate trained in Dialectical Behavior Therapy, cites cutting-edge science to show that BPD is a true neurobiological disorder and not, as many come to believe, a character flaw or the result of bad parenting. Porr clearly and accessibly explains what BPD is, which therapies have proven effective, and how to rise above the weighty stigma associated with the disorder. Offering families and loved ones supprotive guidance that both acknowledges the difficulties they face and shows how they can be overcome, Porr teaches empirically-supported and effective coping behaviors and interpersonal skills, such as new ways of talking about emotions, how to be aware of nonverbal communication, and validating difficult experiences. These skills are derived from Dialetical Bheavior Therapy and Mentalization-based Therapy, two evidence-based treatments that have proven highly successful in reducing family conflict while increasing trust. Overcoming Borderline Personality Disorder is an empowering and hopeful resource for those who wish to gain better understanding of the BPD experience---and to make use of these insights in day-to-day family interactions.

Valerie Porr, M.A., is a mental health educator and advocate trained in Dialectical Behavior Therapy, and the founder and president of the Treatment and Research Advancements National Association for Personality Disorder (TARA NAPD). She conducts psycho-educational training seminars for family members of those with BPD in New York and elsewhere.