Trauma and Borderline Personality Disorder

Somatic interventions for working with trauma-related borderline personality disorder

with JANINA FISHER

Research over the past three decades has demonstrated a clear relationship between childhood abuse and a diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder. Rather than experiencing others as a safe haven, traumatized individuals are driven by a powerful desire and simultaneously an intense fear of entering into relationships.

The borderline patient is not at war with the therapist. He or she is involved in an internal battle: do I trust or do I not trust?  Do I live or do I die? Do I love or hate? Understanding these patients as fragmented and at war with themselves transforms the therapeutic relationship and treatment.

In this presentation, we will address the impact of traumatic attachment on individuals' ability to tolerate emotions (their own and others') and how "borderline personality" can be better understood as a trauma-related disorder. Exploring the effects of traumatic attachment opens up new ways of working with patients struggling to cope with their trauma and emotional responses. This seminar series combines lectures and videos to explore how to help patients make sense of their internal struggles and better manage their dysregulated emotional and autonomic states.

New approaches and interventions drawn from Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Internal Family Systems, and mindfulness-based therapies can transform what it means to treat "borderline" patients.