Psychotherapy

Psychotherapy is an essential part of the program for BPD. The primary focus of psychotherapy is to learn new skills to replace dysfunctional borderline behavior. The secondary focus is to increase your capacity to trust other people in a meaningful way. The third focus is to reduce psychotraumatic feelings and thoughts.
It is important that you take the time to select a therapist with whom you feel a sense of rapport. Your therapy will fail if you attempt to work with someone you do not like. It also helps to pay for your own therapy and not to simply rely on your insurance. Your well-being and happiness are worth more to you than the out of pocket costs of therapy. In addition, if you are paying for your care you are much more likely to value it and not to waste time and effort going in circles.
The therapist you choose should also have experience with borderline personality disorder patients. You will need about one year of outpatient treatment before you will experience significant improvement. Do not be discouraged by the fact that making large changes in behavior patterns learned at an early age takes time. Besides, without high quality psychotherapy of adequate duration you will not get better.
Two specialized forms of psychotherapy for BPD are DBT therapy (Dr. Marsha Linehan) and The Angry Heart Therapy program (Dr. Joseph Santoro).
EMDR is another specialized form of therapy that can help you to reduce your psychotraumatic feelings and memories.
Each of these forms of therapy can be quite effective as long as you are committed to working honestly and consistently with your therapist.

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