Treating Clients with Personality Disorders: Enhance the Strengths, Not the Weaknesses
We tend to spend the majority of our time in treatment focusing on our clients’ weaknesses. While this is an important part of treatment, it leaves out a vital part of our clients: their strengths.
Most individuals with a personality disorder come in with an overwhelming amount of weaknesses or areas of concern. As we progress in treatment we identify triggers and core content that promotes maladaptive patterns of behaviors that cause our clients to disrupt their lives. Bringing weaknesses into awareness should only be 10% of the treatment process; the other 90% is building on their strengths to overcome their weaknesses.When we overlook the client's strengths in our treatment plans, we treat only a portion of our client and unintentionally distance ourselves from treating the whole person.
How can we ensure we highlight each patient’s strengths?
A worksheet has been created to help you work with your clients to identify their strengths. Download the worksheet - it has six strategies to help your client enhance their strengths in difficult situations. Next, watch the short video to learn the three categories of strengths. Understanding these categories will help you maximize your ability to identify and build upon your client's strengths.
Get 6 strategies to help your client enhance their strengths in difficult situations.
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Daniel J. Fox, PhD, is a licensed psychologist in Texas, international speaker, and multiple-award winning author. He has been specializing in the treatment and assessment of individuals with personality disorders for over 20 years in the state and federal prison system, universities, and in private practice. His specialty areas include personality disorders, ethics, burnout prevention, and emotional intelligence. He has published several articles and books in these areas and is the author of the award-winning Narcissistic Personality Disorder Toolbox, The Clinician's Guide to Diagnosis and Treatment of Personality Disorders, the award-winning Antisocial, Borderline, Narcissistic and Histrionic Workbook: Treatment strategies for Cluster B Personality Disorders, The Borderline Personality Disorder Workbook, and Complex Borderline Personality Disorder.
Dr. Fox has been teaching and supervising students for over 20 years at various universities across the United States, some of which include West Virginia University, Texas A&M University, University of Houston, Sam Houston State University, and Florida State University. He works in the federal prison system, is an adjunct assistant professor at the University of Houston and maintains a private practice that specializes in the assessment and treatment of individuals with complex psychopathology and personality disorders. Dr. Fox has given numerous workshops and seminars on ethics and personality disorders, personality disorders and crime, treatment solutions for working with clients along the antisocial, borderline, narcissistic, and histrionic personality spectrum, emotional intelligence, managing mental health within the prison system, and others. Dr. Fox maintains a website of various treatment interventions focused on working with and attenuating the symptomatology related to individuals along with the antisocial, borderline, narcissistic, and histrionic personality spectrum (www.drdfox.com).
Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Dr. Daniel Fox maintains a private practice and has an employment relationship with the University of Houston. He receives royalties as a published author. Dr. Daniel Fox receives a speaking honorarium, recording and book royalties from PESI, Inc. He has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Dr. Daniel Fox is an Editor/Reviewer with Prentice Hall and Worth Publishers.
Esther Perel has devoted her entire professional life to helping people build thriving relationships. She believes that the quality of our relationships determines the quality of our lives. Since arriving as a graduate student in the United States, Perel has examined the concept from myriad angles: the nature of cultural and religious identity, the negotiation between tradition and modernity, the ebb and flow between individualism and collectivism. She observed interracial and interreligious couples; the cultural forces that affect gender roles; practices of childrearing; and ultimately, the tensions, obstacles, and anxieties that arise when our quest for love and security conflicts with our pursuit of adventure and freedom.
Today, Perel is best known as the host of the wildly popular podcast Where Should We Begin? This fascinating, inside look at Perel’s sessions with real-life couples has unlocked a deep-seated cultural interest in hashing these issues out openly in order to live better lives. However, it has also unlocked within Perel the understanding that her years of study and practice go beyond the romantic, and that the lessons she has learned can be applied to relationships of all kinds, in all environments. The same principles used to create an open, balanced relationship with one’s significant other can be applied to our co-workers, our bosses, and our world at large.
New York Times best-selling author Esther Perel is recognized as one of today’s most insightful and original voices on modern relationships. As a psychotherapist, Perel has helmed a therapy practice in New York City for more than 35 years. In parallel, she serves as an organizational consultant for Fortune 500 companies around the world. Fluent in nine languages, Perel’s celebrated TED talks have garnered more than 40 million views and her best-selling books have been translated into 31 languages. Perel is an executive producer and host of the award-winning podcast Where Should We Begin? Her new podcast How’s Work? focuses on workplace dynamics and can be enjoyed on Spotify or other podcast providers.
Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Esther Perel maintains a private practice. She has employment relationships with Columbia University, Ackerman Institute for the Family, Norwegian Institute for the Expressive Arts Therapies, The Minuchin center for the Family, and 92nd Street Y. She receives royalties as a published author. Esther Perel receives a speaking honorarium and recording royalties from Psychotherapy Networker and PESI, Inc. She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Esther Perel is a member of the American Family Therapy Academy, The Society for Sex Therapy and Research, and the American Association for Sex Educators, Counsellors and Therapists.
