borderline personality disorder

By David Allen, MD

Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is a treatment that was originally created by Marsha Linehan and her team to treat individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD). Folks with BPD have what’s called pervasive emotion dysregulation—in other words, they struggle to identify what they’re feeling, don’t have the skills to effectively manage the emotions that arise, and end up turning to problem behaviors (such as suicide attempts, self-harming behaviors, or substance use), in an attempt to cope.

From "Just Like a Timepiece," Beyond Borderline: True Stories of Recovery from Borderline Personality Disorder, Available Now

To the right of me sat Natalie Portman. To the left of me sat the Crown Prince of Dubai. In front of me stood our Nobel laureate professor. And between them, I sat, holding within me the most infamous personality of all, my borderline personality disorder.

In recent years, developments in neuroscience have offered significant breakthroughs in understanding the brain chemistry that contributes to the behaviors and suffering associated with borderline personality disorder. While mindfulness cannot change your genes, research is beginning to show that it can change the way your genes work (Smalley 2010).