Personality Disorders
Do any of the following statements ring true for yourself? It sometimes feels difficult to maintain relationships, to be steady in your long-term goals, or even to manage your emotions. At times, people experience you as moody, needy or unable to manage on your own. Maybe you’ve thought of yourself as depressed or anxious, but medication has had limited or no impact on this experience of yourself. You might feel lonely, disconnected, or find it difficult to be around people. Quite often people may experience you as difficult, controlling, jealous or uncaring. Or maybe you feel like the world is an alien place and no-one understands you. These are only some of the aspects that might indicate some personality-related issues, maybe even a personality disorder.
Too often personality disorders are spoken about in negative ways. This is an unfortunate phenomenon when most people with personality disorder will respond fairly well to intensive treatment and will be able to live stable lives with appropriate treatment. Some personality disorders even have multiple forms of treatment, giving options to therapists and clients as to what will work. Evidence-based approaches are plentiful and outcomes with treatment are often positive. Treatment for borderline personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, avoidant personality disorder, histrionic personality disorder, schizoid personality disorder, dependent personality disorder, obsessive compulsive personality disorder are all feasible and treatable at our practice.
Our psychologists and psychotherapists are skilled and trained in various ways of working and are interested in working beyond the basics of dialectical behaviour therapy. In this practice, various forms of therapy are offered, depending on what will have the best outcomes for you and for the issues that you present. Various forms of treatment may be more suitable to different personality disorders or concerns. In this practice, mentalization-based treatment (MBT), transference focused psychotherapy (TFP), dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT), schema focused treatment (SFT), good psychiatric management (GPM), structured clinical management (SCM) and supportive psychotherapy (SP) are options. In addition, group therapy is offered using MBT and/or DBT at intervals throughout the year. Please note: antisocial personality disorder is not treated within the context of this practice, as treatment processes within the community context may not always be effective.
