2-Day Borderline Personality Disorder Treatment Workshop
Clinical Assessment, Differential Diagnosis and Evidence-Based Treatment Tools for BPD
- Speaker:
- Ellen Biros, LCSW, C-PD
- Duration:
- Two Full Days
- Product Code:
- LWC151088
- Brochure Code:
- PWZ96844
- Media Type:
- Live Webinar - Also available: Digital Seminar
Description
This training gives you the skills, structure, and interventions to treat clients with BPD
- Core treatment principles and an easy-to-follow treatment framework
- Diagnostic interview strategies and how to evaluate treatability
- How to guidance on de-escalating crises, boundary-setting and managing suicide risk
- Proven DBT tools and best practices
The emotional intensity. The boundary testing. The crisis calls. The sessions that leave you second-guessing. And underneath it all, the quite worry:
Am I actually helping – or just managing the chaos?
BPD is one of the most misdiagnosed, stigmatized, and misunderstood conditions in clinical practice – and most clinicians were never given in-depth training on treating it.
This intensive two-day workshop changes that.
You’ll join Ellen Biros, LCSW, C-PD, a Certified Personality Disorder Treatment Provider with over 25 years of clinical experience and an adjunct professor and author who’s trained thousands of therapists worldwide.
Over two days, she’ll give you a complete clinical framework that covers assessment, differential diagnosis, risk management, and structured, evidence-based treatments …
…PLUS walk you through case studies and demonstrations that show you exactly what effective intervention looks like in the therapy room, not just in therapy.
You’ll learn how to stay out of the drama triangle, hold boundaries without rupturing the alliance, create real accountability, and protect yourself from the burnout this work is notorious for.
Over two days, you’ll learn to:
- Diagnose BPD and distinguish it from bipolar, narcissistic personality, and trauma-related conditions
- Assess treatability and build a realistic, structured treatment plan
- De-escalate crises and interrupt the patterns that derail therapy
- Set boundaries that hold under pressure
- Manage suicide risk and self-harm in clients with BPD
- Navigate countertransference and protect yourself from burnout
Whether you want to specialize in personality disorder treatment or simply want to feel fully prepared the next time one of these clients is on your schedule …
… this training gives you the skills, structure, and tools to treat BPD.
Register now.
We’re so confident this training will make you a more capable, more confident clinician that it’s backed by our 100% satisfaction guarantee.
Credit
Speaker
Ellen Biros, LCSW, C-PD Related seminars and products
Ellen Biros, LCSW, C-PD, has over 25 years of experience working with individuals struggling with trauma, anxiety, substance abuse, depression, domestic violence, and personality disorders. She’s a Certified Personality Disorder Treatment Provider (C-PD) and specializes in working with survivors of narcissistic abuse and other manipulative personality disorders. Ms. Biros has trained thousands of therapists on a variety of issues including emotional manipulation, personality disorders, and covert abuse. She’s an adjunct faculty member at The University of Phoenix in the School of Social Work and was formerly an adjunct at Tulane’s University’s School of Social Work. Ms. Biros is the author of Recovering from Narcissistic Mothers: A Daughters Workbook.
Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Ellen Biros maintains a private practice and has employment relationships with UMass Global and the University of Phoenix. She receives royalties as a published author. Ellen Biros receives a speaking honorarium and recording royalties from PESI, Inc. She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Ellen Biros is a member of the National Association of Social Workers, the Georgia Society of Clinical Social Workers, and the American Clinical Social Work Association.
Additional Info
Access Period for Live WebcastYou will have access for 90 days after the program for review. For live CE credit, you must watch the live webcast in its entirety at its scheduled time and complete the CE quiz and evaluation within one week. Please note that this requirement may vary by credit type. Please see detailed credit information for specific requirements for each credit type.
Webcast Schedule
Please note: There will be a 70-minute lunch and two 15-minute breaks; one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Lunch and break times will be announced by the speaker and at their discretion. A more detailed schedule is available upon request.
Questions?
Visit our FAQ page at www.pesi.com/faq or contact us at www.pesi.com/info
Objectives
- Identify the core diagnostic features and clinical presentation of borderline personality disorder using DSM-5-TR™ criteria.
- Differentiate borderline personality disorder from bipolar disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, and trauma-related conditions.
- Evaluate client treatability by assessing motivation, relational capacity, and behavioral stability.
- Determine when to apply clinical management strategies versus active treatment based on client presentation and stability.
- Apply management strategies that reduce crisis behaviors and slow emotional escalation.
- Analyze the dynamics of the dramatic/crisis behavior and demonstrate strategies to maintain therapeutic neutrality and avoid dysfunctional role enactments.
- Utilize treatment contracts and therapeutic boundaries to maintain structure, accountability, and safety in therapy.
- Choose core treatment techniques that strengthen the observing ego, expand the self, and build problem-solving capacity.
- Apply DBT skills — including mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness — to address emotion dysregulation in clients with BPD.
- Use suicide and self-harm risk assessment to apply appropriate intervention strategies for clients with borderline personality disorder.
- Examine the role and limitations of psychopharmacology in the treatment of borderline personality disorder.
- Identify ethical risks, countertransference, and clinician burnout when working with high-intensity clients.
Outline
DAY 1: UNDERSTANDING BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER: DIAGNOSIS, DEVELOPMENT, AND CLINICAL PRESENTATION
Foundations of Personality and Personality Disorders
- Understanding Personality
- Definition of personality and enduring psychological patterns
- Components of personality development
- Interaction of temperament, environment, and attachment
- Distinguishing personality traits vs. personality disorders
- What Makes Personality “Disordered”
- Adaptive vs maladaptive personality functioning
- Personality disorders as characterological conditions
- Long-term functional impairment across life domains
- Cultural expectations and personality pathology
- DSM-5-TR™ Framework for Personality Disorders
- Diagnostic criteria for personality disorders
- Alternative DSM-5™ Model for Personality Disorder
- Personality disorder clusters
- Prevalence and clinical challenges
Recognize Personality Disorders in Clinical Practice
- Clinical Interview Indicators
- Ego-syntonic behavior patterns
- External locus of control
- Chronic interpersonal conflict
- Difficulty forming collaborative therapeutic alliances
- Behavioral and Relational Warning Signs
- “Therapist hopping”
- Chronic instability in relationships and work
- Recurrent crises and life disruptions
- Escalating interpersonal drama
- The Drama Triangle in Personality Disorders
- Victim, rescuer, persecutor
- Role shifts in clinical relationships
- How therapists become pulled into dysfunctional roles
- Identify personality patterns in session
Clinical Framework for Treating Personality Disorders
- Working with personality vs. symptoms
- Core principles for treatment
- Essential clinical competencies
- Burnout prevention strategies
- Exercise: Therapist Resilience Reflection
Borderline Personality Disorder – Clinical Overview
- Historical Development of the Diagnosis
- Early conceptualization of “borderline” conditions
- Contributions from psychoanalytic theory
- Evolution of modern diagnostic frameworks
- Define Borderline Personality Disorder
- Instability in emotional regulation
- Disturbances in identity and self-image
- Interpersonal hypersensitivity
- Impulsivity and behavioral dysregulation
- DS-5-TR™ Diagnostic Criteria for BPD
- Exercise: Rapid Interpretation: The Meaning-Making Process
Epidemiology, Development, and Risk Factors for BFD
- Prevalence
- Gender differences
- Socioeconomic vulnerabilities
- Developmental risk factors
- Biological contributors
- Cultural considerations in borderline personality disorder
DAY 2: TREATMENT, RISK MANAGEMENT, AND CLINICAL INTERVENTION STRATEGIES
Core Psychological Features of BFD
- Identify disturbance
- Cognitive distortions
- Emotional dysregulation
- Interpersonal instability
Differential Diagnosis
- Distinguishing BPD from Bipolar Disorder
- Mood instability vs mood episodes
- Environmental vs neurological triggers
- Emotional depth and empathy differences
- Other differential diagnoses
Assessment and Treatability Evaluation
- Diagnostic Interview Strategies
- Evaluate general personality disorder criteria
- Identify long-term relational patterns
- Standardized Assessment Tools
- BPD-specific measures
- Evaluating treatability
Management Strategies for BPD
- Purpose of Clinical Management
- Reduce harm and escalation
- Stabilize functioning
- Prevent therapeutic rupture
- When to Use management vs treatment
- Staying Out of the Drama Triangle
- Slow emotional escalation
- Maintain therapist neutrality
- Avoid emotional blackmail
- Identify Behavioral Targets
- Focus on one behavior at a time
- Interrupt escalation patterns
- Reinforce adaptive behaviors
Boundaries, Therapeutic Language, Treatment Goals and More
- Effective boundary-setting
- Language that escalates conflict
- Therapeutic neutrality
- Treatment Goals
- Treatment Contracts
- Responding to Contract Violations
The Borderline Personality Disorder Treatment Toolbox
- Expanding the Self
- Strengthening the Observing Ego
- Reducing Drama
- Building Problem-Solving Capacity
- DBT Skills for BPD
- The biosocial model: understanding emotion dysregulation as the core of BPD
- Dialectics in practice: balancing acceptance and change
- Mindfulness – building the “wise mind” and reducing reactivity
- Distress Tolerance – crisis survival skills (TIPP, radical acceptance, self-soothing) to replace self-harm and impulsive behaviors
- Emotion Regulation – identifying, labeling, and modulating intense emotions; reducing emotional vulnerability
- Interpersonal Effectiveness – DEAR MAN, GIVE, and FAST skills for boundaries and relationships
- Chain analysis: mapping the links from trigger to problem behavior
- Research, risks, and limitations
Psychopharmacology in BPD
- Medication Classes Used in BPD
- Limitations of Medication
Suicide Risk and Self-Harm Management
- Suicide Risk in BPD
- Non-suicidal self-injury as emotional regulation
- Risk Assessment Strategies
Ethics, Supervision, and Professional Boundaries
- The 4 Nonnegotiables in working with BPD
- Clinician Self-care
- Clinician’s Responses in Treatment Outcome
- Navigating Countertransference
- Case Study Application
Target Audience
- Counselors
- Social Workers
- Marriage and Family Therapists
- Psychologists
- Registered Psychotherapists
- Addiction Counselors
- Case Managers
- Nurses
- Other Mental Health Professionals
Reviews
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