When Your Daughter Has BPD

For the family members of such a person, would help in managing better. Should be read by parents and close ones

This book takes a confrontational approach. It advocates the liberal use of hospital visits to defuse the outcomes. The book doesn’t hold out hope of a cure from what I could see.

This is the book I absolutely needed and have been searching for after purchasing a couple of others (another dedicated to teens and then a more general one for families which includes BPD patients of all ages). I went straight to parenting skills needed and "Step 1: Stop the Bleeding" chapters and this alone was worth it's weight in gold. These chapters provide specific examples of what to say and what not to say, how to handle situations, and how to navigate the delicate balance of promoting independence without the threat of abandonment. There are also some things that I needed to hear loud and clear to help me continue meeting my own needs and living my life while she is on HER journey. I have not read the entire book so I cannot ascertain to what degree it is helpful for older daughters (discussed by one previous reviewer.) I suspect that a lot can be applied with thoughtfulness. The examples in the Step 1 chapter do demonstrate examples with teenage daughters. I would also believe that all of the advice would pertain to sons with BPD as well, (and those parents would just have to get over the focused language/examples for daughters.) I completely disagree with the one reviewer who was sensitive to the "monster" analogy. On pg. 52 the author includes advice of "Starving the Monster." He writes: "A well-fed monster, a severe disorder that drives your daughter's unhealthy behaviors, is the result of giving in to unrealistic demands. If you are like most parents of children with BPD, the giving in usually occurs after your child ramps up her aggressive behavior toward you every time she does not get what she wants when she wants it." In my opinion, the author is clearly stating that the child is not a monster, it is THE DISORDER. He also writes: "starving the monster" will be met with resistance in the form of escalating aggression, and a three step restorative process is provided to weather the resistance and transition. The descriptive language that my spouse and I used in the past included "rollercoaster behavior" and "Jekyll and Hyde." In my opinion, this is not a negative book, it is reality. The monster term I find reinforcing to help parents stick with the new parenting communication and boundary skills so that your child's behavior improves instead of staying the same or getting worse. I am concerned with seeing the number of helpful comments for that paticular negative review, that maybe some people are not giving the content a fair chance after reading all of the 4 and 5 star reviews. My constructive criticism for the author would be to include an example list of detailed boundaries for both parents and child with BPD. It would be best to have one example for a teenage daughter with BPD and another for an adult daughter with BPD. I was hoping to avoid inventing the wheel, but not having any luck finding a good starting point anywhere on the internet specific to teenagers with BPD. The really rough draft I received from a family therapist is heavily one-sided on the part of the child and it is important for the child to see how the parent is adhering to certain (and maybe new) boundaries/tasks/practices/strategies as well.

Really valuable book with practical, real life examples and solutions. Really helped me to have a better understanding on what’s a really difficult situation. A must for parent with children with BPD.

Excellent book to help you cope

My family has been struggling with managing BPD for over a decade now. Anyone who has children that struggle to manage their emotions, and who have a tendency to do extreme things, up to and including self-harm, would do well to read this book. The health system here in the UK is very reluctant to acknowledge that adolescents can even have BPD, let alone parents somehow managing to somehow get treatment for it. Lots of times you feel like you are going crazy, as public institutions like school, Children's Services and CAMHS refuse to acknowledge what seems blindingly obvious to someone living in this kind of situation - that BPD is completely ruining your family life. The (fictional) dialogue vignettes used throughout this book are incredibly accurate. I swear that my kids have said exactly the same things to me, even though (obviously) the author has never met them. As someone who has spent a lot of time previously reading "theory" books on BPD , e.g diagnostic criteria, origins, therapeutic options, etc. I found the practical approach used in this book very refreshing and on point. Essentially, this book is the "applied" counterpart to your theoretical BPD knowledge. What does BPD actually do to a family, when someone has it? How do they talk? What are their typical behaviours? How do you approach family interactions to get the best outcomes, both for you as a parent, and for all of your kids, some of whom may not have BPD? The author should also be praised for being realistic about potential outcomes, too. This isn't a "Cure Your Family BPD in Five Minutes!' type of book. He stresses the hard work that will need to go into establishing boundaries for your children, the continued testing of those boundaries that will almost inevitably follow, that you may need to let your adult children fail at things in the process of helping them, and he also admits that it is likely parents will need to continue with many of these 'managing' behaviours long into the adulthood of their children, when other people's children may well have outgrown the need for such things. That there may be no true 'cure', just better overall management of the condition within the family. There are some small parts of the book that don't translate so well for a UK audience. For example, the author talks about children with BPD sometimes engaging in self-harm, or even making suicide attempts, and he advocates that parents should not give in to this type of behaviour when it is used as a bargaining chip, and we should instead take our children immediately to the "Emergency Room", where it can be dealt with properly by a trained mental health professional. Having been in precisely that sort of situation several times, I can say for sure that you can't always get mental health professionals to engage in crisis situations like that in the UK. Often the best you can hope for is that medical doctors will treat any physical injuries, and will then discharge the child, in the hope that CAMHS will push them higher up the waiting list as a result of the latest self-harm attempt, and hopefully see them 'one day'. This means you as parent still have to deal with the aftermath of such a crisis situation, and you can't rely on a mental health professional to rush in and take decisions on your behalf. I would make similar comments about some statements in the book regarding therapists as well. In various places the book makes comments about the child's therapeutic relationship, which both assumes they have one, and it also assumes that the therapist is 'on board' with the idea that the child has BPD, and is working with you as parent to help treat it. This can hardly be guaranteed here in the UK, given attitudes towards children and mental health in general. The UK generally is reluctant to 'medicalise' mental health issues in children, and prefers to blame and shame the parents, whenever possible. So often institutions will advocate the opposite of what this book does - whereas the book emphasises imposing boundaries, and sticking to them, to avoid what the author calls 'feeding the monster', often the professionals in the UK will advocate the opposite, assuming that your child will respond to that as a typical child would. These things aside, though, the book is a treasure trove of commentary and ideas around BPD and family life. I absolutely guarantee that you will have various "a-ha" moments, as you recognise something you have seen in your own family, and then the penny drops that this is actually related to BPD. I thought I knew quite a bit about BPD, but the author surprised me by helping me see that various longstanding tensions in my family were also related to BPD, that I thought were entirely separate. The 'futures' section towards the end of the book is also quite sobering, and helps you realise that in many cases the drama will not end here, with this generation. If your children have children of their own, those grandchildren will become enmeshed in it all too, and they will become yet another option for triangulation for the person with BPD, damaging the grandchildren too in the process, and potentially transmitting the BPD down to another generation. Overall, a fantastic read - helps you realise that you are not alone, you are not going crazy, and that this is happening to other families too, even if you don't personally know anyone else struggling like this. To the author - thank you for writing this book. It has made more of a difference than you know.