Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) has a high rate of co-occurrence with various mental health disorders. High on that list is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Though BPD and PTSD are two distinct mental health disorders with their own set of diagnostic criteria, the two co-occur at surprisingly high rates.

Itai Danovitch, MD, director of addiction psychiatry clinical services at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles and supervising psychiatrist at Clearview Treatment Programs in Venice Beach, explains the core principles of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) treatment highlighted by the American Psychiatric Association guidelines and BPD experts.

Because individuals with BPD exhibit instability in many areas of their lives, it is often difficult to diagnose the disorder, especially since BPD symptoms can mimic those of other disorders (such as Bipolar Disorder). While this potential confusion between disorders may delay the diagnosis of BPD, the importance of accurately identifying the underlying psychiatric issues supersedes any inclination to reach a diagnosis quickly.

While family and loved ones generally feel compassion and desire recovery and lasting mental well-being for the person in their lives with Borderline Personality Disorder, the disorder can also cause great stress in your own life. Being in the presence of someone whose world is a rollercoaster of emotions can be taxing. In order to cope with the presence of a person with BPD in your life, it is important to figure out what you need to do to deal with what you’re feeling and how you react.

Many people believe that people struggling with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) merely lack the willpower to overcome the behavioral and emotional problems associated with the disorder. However, this is a dangerous misconception.

If you are suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), you may experience a lessening of symptoms associated with the disorder as you get older. But don’t let this fool you into thinking that you can merely “grow out of” BPD. Although there is sometimes a reduction of Borderline Personality Disorder symptoms as a person ages, it is dangerous to assume that you can just wait out the disorder and hope to get better.

The seminar, scheduled for Sept. 17, 2010, will focus on the theoretical foundation of Mentalization-Based Therapy and its application to treating patients with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).

A study published in a recent issue of the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry found that people with personality disorders are 1.5 times more likely than people without personality disorders to relapse with major depression.

When it comes to treating Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), therapists most often turn to Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT). DBT was developed as a way to help people with the disorder better manage their BPD symptoms.