woking, guildford and online
BPD/EUPD
Borderline Personality Disorder/Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder are, let’s face it, horrible titles.
Not only are they horrible titles but I think also inaccurate. I do not see people as having their personalities disordered, I see people who have had attachment wounds and trauma which make it difficult to self sooth emotions, therefore feeling them more intensely, and making the need for relationships stronger whilst also creating a fear of being wounded again. This need for relationship and the fear of relationships (or heightened fear of them breaking down) is a core conflict in trauma symptomology. I have not, at the time of writing, met someone diagnosed with EUPD/BPD who does not have a trauma and attachment wounds in their history in some form or another.
Considering we are social beings, we need attachment relationships to build our sense of self, help us learn to regulate our own emotions, and connect with other people. It is therefore normal for people who have had trauma or attachment wounds to have responses which psychiatrists group together as symptoms of BPD/EUPD. If you have this diagnosis or the related “symptoms” but undiagnosed, then I truly believe you are normal person, having a normal, human response to unmet needs.
Therapy for BPD/EUPD
Integrative Psychotherapy along with EMDR and AF-EMDR (Attachment Focused- EMDR) or, trauma and attachment focused psychotherapy can be great for healing the wounds and building up strength and resilience and a sense of self. Parts work may also be beneficial to work with parts of self that are in conflict. I do not often use elements of DBT skills anymore as I see DBT skills as only looking at management of symptoms and not the underlying cause. I may use some DBT skills as symptoms management may be needed, however, I feel the majority of therapy should be focused on underlying healing to remove the need of symptom management.
It is hard to fully describe what therapy will look like, as no one person is the same, therefore therapy will be different person to person. However, the work with usually entail oscillating between focusing on past, present and future/expected situations, regulation techniques, trauma processing, skills and confidence building, and relational psychotherapy.
Due to the nature of psychotherapy, trauma and attachment, therapy is unlikely to be short-term. You are, of course, in charge of how long you have therapy for, however, there are no quick fixes. I do work on an open-ended basis where you are in charge of the length of therapy and can even decide to pause and return at different stages of progress. Some people opt for 90 minute sessions or a couple of sessions a week, however, this is not a requirement. A large part of therapy is about pacing. Sometimes my job is to help speed thing up slightly, sometimes it is to slow things down. The idea of therapy can be a highly scary and daunting process, especially when there is a lot of pain to work through. Rest assured, when in therapy with me, rushing to fast is not part of the process and going at your own pace is always advised.
Get in touch
Feel free to contact me if you have any questions about how counselling works, or to arrange an initial appointment. This enables us to discuss the reasons you are thinking of coming to counselling, whether it could be helpful for you and whether I am the right therapist to help.
You can also call me on +44 74705 14551 if you would prefer to leave a message or speak to me first. I am happy to discuss any queries or questions you may have prior to arranging an initial appointment.
All enquires are usually answered within 24 hours, and all contact is strictly confidential and uses secure phone and email services.