Resources

In the past ten years, DBT has become more widely practiced and available. Research has expanded the scope of treatment possibilities and family stories have helped reduce the stigma. Only a few years ago, a Time Magazine cover proclaimed: Borderline Personality: the Disorder Doctors Fear the Most.

Now, thanks to widely available resources, conferences and the effectiveness of the treatment, stigma is reduced and family members are engaged in helping their relatives lead hopeful lives. This section contains some links to important resources. Take a look.

Books

The Family Guide to Borderline Personality Disorder

By Alan E. Fruzzetti, PhD

Finding Peace in Your Family Using Dialectical Behavior Therapy.

Mindfulness for Borderline Personality Disorder

By Blaise Aguirre, MD
& Gillian Galen, PsyD
Relieve Your Suffering Using the Core Skills of Dialectical Behavior Therapy.

A BPD Brief

By John Gunderson

An Introduction to Borderline Personality Disorder – Diagnosis, Origins, Course and Treatment

Understanding and Treating Borderline Personality Disorder

By John G. Gunderson, MD &
and Perry D Hoffman, PhD

A Guide For Professionals And Families

The High Conflict Couple

By Alan E. Fruzzetti, PhD

A Dialectical Behavior Therapy Guide To Finding Peace, Intimacy and Validation.

Radical Acceptance

By Tara Brach

Embracing Your Life With The Heart Of A Buddha

The Buddha & The Borderline

By Kiera Van Gelder

My Recovery from Borderline Personality Disorder Through Dialectical Behavior Therapy

How to Sit

By Thich Nhat Hanh

Author of Living Buddha, Living Christ

Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames

By Thich Nhat Hanh

Author of Living Buddha, Living Christ

Loving Someone with Borderline Personality Disorder

By Shari Y. Manning, PhD

How To Keep Out Of Control Emotions From Destroying Your Relationship

The Mindfulness Solutions For Intense Emotions:Take Control of Borderline Personality Disorder with DBT

by Cedar Koons

The Mindfulness Solution for Intense Emotions offers breakthrough, new mindfulness skills and exercises drawn from dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) to help you move past harmful emotions.

DBT Self Help

DBT Self help; written primarily by PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN THROUGH DBT, this website is a service for people who are seeking information about DBT (Dialectal Behavior Therapy). A solid resource for many of the skills, lessons, mindfulness practice, etc. and more resources.

Emotions Matter

Your content goes here. Edit or remove this text inline or in the module Content settings. You can also style every aspect of this content in the module Design settings and even apply custom CSS to this text in the module Advanced settings.

National Education Alliance for Borderline Personality Disorder

National Education Alliance for Borderline Personality Disorder; NEA.BPD is a nationally recognized organization dedicated to building better lives for millions of Americans affected by Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). NEA.BPD works with families and persons in recovery, raises public awareness, provides education to professionals, promotes research, and works with Congress to enhance the quality of life for those affected by this serious but treatable mental illness. This website has the largest collection of resources, recordings and videos about this illness.

May – BPD Awareness Video Series

A series of videos explaining Family skills: This video series, developed jointly by NEA.BPD (Dr. Alan Fruzzetti) and the National Office for Suicide Prevention in Ireland (HSE), demonstrate how Dialectical Behavioral Therapy helps patients and their families and support Family Connections participants in honing their skills.

Videos

How severe chronic emotional dysregulation affects families, and what family members can do about it.

This video clarifies the exhausting repetitive emotional upset that affects families of individuals affected by BPD traits. It explains the transactional model of BPD conceptualized by Alan Fruzzetti, Ph.D as I teach it in Family Connections (TM) classes. The slide content was developed by Dr. Fruzzetti.

The Importance of DBT Skills for Families
8th Annual Yale NEA-BPD Conference – Impulsivity Aggression and Legal Involvement New Haven CT May 2012

Involving Families: A Key Ingredient of Treatment Effectiveness
North American Society for the Study of Personality Disorders (NASSPD): Marie-Paule de Valdivia – LCSW. March 2015

Marie-Paule De Valdivia, Founder & Clinician Families On The Line

My experience is unique and multi-faceted. I am the relative of a family member who manages her BPD symptoms and with whom I enjoy a loving relationship.

As part of my MSW curriculum, I trained extensively in the DBT program of Yale New Haven Psychiatric Hospital. I have worked extensively with family members via phone or Skype; as well as in-person with clients who suffer from the symptoms of BPD and their families.

I have volunteered on the board of the National Education Alliance for Borderline Personality Disorder for 10 years, believing passionately in that mission and developing the Family Connections program in the US and around the world, as well as teaching it at home and overseas to hundreds of families and colleagues.

I am frequently invited to speak on the topic of families’ experience and treatment at conferences in the US and worldwide.

My Journey

When our child’s illness became evident a decade ago, we, her family, were very much overwhelmed and had no sense of where to turn. Despite the fact that they had been in intensive therapy; for about a year we floundered about, while their life which had been full of promise came to an abrupt stop, filled as it was with impulsive and dangerous behaviors. Yet no one brought up with us the diagnosis of BPD. And when they turned 18, of course no one discussed anything with us at all anymore. It is only when I discovered the description of BPD symptoms on the website of a well known psychiatric hospital, that all became clear.

Our child went into treatment. We took the NEABPD Family Connections class. Things improved vastly, both at home and for them. There were bumps in the road, but the progress was marked.

I started teaching Family Connections, I could see the profound effect on families and loved it. So I went back to school and earned an MSW. I was given the extraordinary opportunity to complete my second year practicum in the DBT program of the Yale-New Haven Psychiatric Hospital. This gave me a well-rounded view of BPD, from a parent’s as well as from a clinician’s perspective.

I have helped patients and continue to do so; I have been helping families for many years; and perhaps most importantly, our family is solid and our adult child has a kind of hope and a life journey we could not have imagined.

My DBT Experience

Founder & Therapist
Families On The Line

Assistant Clinical Professor of Social Work in Psychiatry (2015-present)
Yale University, School of Medicine
Along with supervising doctoral students in psychology, I also co-directed the Annual Yale –NEABPD conference in 2015 and 2016.

DBT Clinician
Yale-New Haven Psychiatric Intensive Outpatient Hospital
During my tenure at YNHH, I delivered group and DBT therapy to adults, adolescents and their families. During a part of that time I also co-directed the DBT program of the Yale New Haven Psychiatric Day Hospital.

Board member and (c) Family Connections Leader (2009-2018)
Executive Vice President (2017-2018)
National Education Alliance for Borderline Personalitydisorder
As part of this all-volunteer organization, I helped grow the Family Connections program from serving a few hundred families annually to serving thousands of families in over 20 countries. I facilitated classes for about 400 families; and trained class leaders internationally. I chaired the Family Connections committee on the board from its inception and for 7 years.

Julia Cardone M.ed, LMSW

Julia is a Licensed Master of Social Work who enjoys working with children, adolescents, and adults. She has extensive training in Dialectical Behavior Therapy and brings her experience in Motivational Interviewing and Cognitive Behavior Therapy to her work with individuals and families.

Prior to joining Families on the Line, Julia served as a practicum clinician within the Yale New Haven Hospital Intensive Outpatient Program, leading DBT skills groups, conducting mindfulness practices with groups, and providing therapy targeting emotional dysregulation. Julia also has experience working with children and adolescents and their families as a behavioral health clinician at Wellmore Behavioral Health in Waterbury, CT, where she engaged in both individual and family work. In addition, Julia has a strong interest in supporting those who grieve, and has received advanced training in providing Complicated Grief Treatment.

She is a Family Connections leader for the National Education Alliance for Borderline Personality Disorder and is passionate about bringing skills and support to families via NEA-BPD weekend intensive workshops and classes for family members of those with emotional dysregulation difficulties.

Julia received her undergraduate degree in Psychology from Brown University, followed by a Master’s in Counseling and Consulting Psychology from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education. She received her Masters of Science in Social Work from Columbia University.

Alli Kalpakci, PhD

Alli has an expertise in working with individuals who experience intense emotions that often lead to problems in interpersonal relationships, risky or impulsive behaviors, self-harm and suicide, and intense self-criticism and hopelessness. She is passionate about working with individuals who have not previously found therapy helpful, and she is committed to genuinely and radically accepting her clients in order to help them experience real and measurable changes in their life.

Alli received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at the University of Houston and completed pre- and post-doctoral fellowships at Yale University School of Medicine, specializing in using Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) in her work with adults and adolescents with borderline personality disorder and their families. Her relevant clinical training includes intensive fellowships at Yale New Haven Hospital Intensive Outpatient DBT Program, The Menninger Clinic, The DBT Center of Houston, the Adolescent Diagnosis Assessment Prevention Treatment Center, and the West Haven VA Outpatient Addiction and Recovery Services program. Alli also has an extensive research background and is a published author in peer-reviewed journals and books on borderline personality disorder, social cognition, emotional sensitivity, and the development of personality disorders.

In addition to DBT, Alli is trained in multiple therapeutic interventions including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Prolonged Exposure [PE], DBT-PE, Cognitive Processing Therapy, Motivational Interviewing, CBT-SUD, and Mentalization-Based Therapy.

Hedy Kober

Hedy completed her doctoral degree in psychology at Columbia University, with a focus on cognitive and affective neuroscience. She is currently completing her respecialization in clinical psychology. Before Hedy joined Families on the Line, she trained at Yale’s Intensive Outpatient DBT program and at Shoreline Psychological Services. Hedy is also an Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology at Yale, where she is the Director of the Clinical & Affective Neuroscience Lab.

Hedy’s research work focuses on the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying emotion regulation strategies, and treatments for psychopathology more broadly (e.g., substance use disorders, eating disorders, mood disorders, and borderline personality disorder). Additional research focuses on the effects and neural mechanisms underlying mindfulness meditation and acceptance-based practices. In both areas, she has published extensively and has given national and international talks.