How to work with Personality Disorders (PD)

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This two day course provides a broad overview of the types of PD presentations in therapy along with current “best practice” approaches to working the such clients.

This course operates as both a “stand alone” training as well as one of the Modules in Master Practitioner Diploma in CBT.

It also can be taken as a follow-up training, see more details under the Accreditation tab of the course.

Personality Disorders(PD) are increasingly common presentations in therapy even when PD isn’t the presenting problem. Traditional therapeutic approaches and principles are often ineffective and the emotional effect of such work on practitioners is frequently adverse. This course is designed in order to help practitioners to recognise various types of PD and to find the most effective ways of working with such clients.

The course will address a number of issues:

• The concept of PD itself along with the different diagnostic types and their presentation in therapy. The following will be outlined:

  • Borderline PD,
  • Antisocial PD,
  • Paranoid PD,
  • Narcissistic PD,
  • Histrionic PD

• The general implications of the therapeutic approach that is required by the practitioner and how this sits with organisational demands and the values of much traditional psychotherapy inc. CBT (see note 1), Person Centred Therapy (see note 2) and even DBT (see note 3) training

• Specific treatment strategies and techniques for different types of PD including how to address motivational issues with PD clients

• Therapist self-care in working with PD clients. One of the great lessons of DBT has been the importance of team responses to PD, in large specifically because of the psychological price that individual practitioners face. However, if you are a sole therapist, you don't always easily have access to team support. The course will outline the key self-care priorities and protection strategies in both contexts.

Note 1: This training is important for those completing the BPS Approved Master Practitioner Diploma in CBT who wish to gain appropriate background knowledge on PD before using CBT with this client group. Cognitive Therapy of Personality Disorders, Aaron T. Beck et al 2nd Edition (2006)

Note 2: This training is important for those considering using a Person Centred Therapy approach to PD. A. Quinn (2011) A Person-Centered Approach to the Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder J. of Humanistic Psychology

Note 3: This training is important for those considering using a Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) approach to PD including completion of the BPS Approved Certificate in Dialectical Behaviour Therapy DBT Skills Training Manual, Marsha M. Linehan 2nd Edition (2014)