Lived Experience Forum

[JulianSpectrum]

@Judi9877 I hear you. In addition to providing treatment, Spectrum provides training to clinicians, and is involved with several other projects that will hopefully support the change in clinical culture and a move away from seeing people as manipulative.

[Peonies]

Thank you for sharing, everyone.

I will now be moving on to our next question, which actually came from one of our community guides @Judi9877 . Why do medical and health specialists think that people with BPD are manipulative and hard? How can this description be changed to a more positive light? 

[JulianSpectrum]

@Peonies 

This is a difficult one to respond to as there is unlikely to be a one-size-fits-all answer to it. For example, some people can find it hard to understand people with BPD’s behaviour in a crisis. Whether we are the one in crisis, or the one responding to a crisis, there is something about stress that can affect all of our thinking. One way this can happen is that we can feel very certain that the other person should understand what we are feeling and why, without having to explain it in detail. Similarly, under stress, we can sometimes think that because we feel a certain way about how someone’s behaviour makes us feel, then this must definitely be what they had intended. In these circumstances, misunderstandings about each other can readily occur.

This could be changed to be less stigmatising in many ways. For example, ‘some people with BPD may find it difficult to express their needs directly in relationships.’ However, it’s unlikely that this will be a reframe that suits everyone’s situation.

One of the things that we advocate for in many of our trainings and consultations to health professionals, is that they practice maintaining their curiosity with the people who come seeking their help, rather than making assumptions about the person and their motivations. So often there are vast differences between people as to what drives them to do things. We also encourage clinicians to reflect on what they bring to their interactions with people with BPD. Sometimes, despite our best intentions,  clincians can contribute something to what is experienced as ‘hard’ and we need to reflect on this, validate it, and find different ways of working with people.

[BPDSurvivor]

@JulianSpectrum ,

Im not sure if this is the place to ask,but why is Spectrum no longer running short 6-8wk courses for BPD?

As @BlueBay mentioned, he attended a 'short' course. From what I know, I've been told these treatment options have ceased.

Are/Were they not effective?

BPDSurvivor

[BlueBay]

Great question @BPDSurvivor 

[sara74]

"For example, ‘some people with BPD may find it difficult to express their needs directly in relationships.’"

That sounds like a problem that I have. My relationships with people are hard in general.

Good evening, everyone. Thank you for the interesting discussion. 🙂

[JulianSpectrum]

@BPDSurvivor That's a bit tricky as I wasn't closely involved in those programs. In short, my understanding is that they were found to be very useful. As to why that particular one is not running, I'm not sure. I do know that Spectrum continue to have some shorter programs running at present, and people continue to report finding these helpful too. The short programs have evolved in different ways over the past few years, involving different modalities, and trying to make treatment accessible to more people. Our hope would be that these could be programs that could one day by run in other services too. 

[Maggie]

@sara74 @BPDSurvivor @Judi9877  👋🏻👋🏻

[Peonies]

@BlueBay I agree with what Julian had mentioned, that some people (including health practitioners) may use the medical model and make assumptions about others' illnesses instead of seeing them as an individual. I do think with more training and mental health awareness is needed to reduce assumptions and stigmatisation in many industries

[BPDSurvivor]

---

@JulianSpectrum wrote:

@BlueBay I can see how that would be scary. One of the scripts to flip here, and we get to this later, is that sometimes treatment is seen as you just do 18 months and things should all be resolved. As your experiences show, this isn't always the case - often things can move slowly or in fits and starts in the journey towards recovery.

---

I agree. My journey of recovery did not begin until after my 18months of MBT. MBT 'prepared the ground' for recovery.