Comprehensive DBT programmes for borderline personality disorder

For over 25 years, St Andrew's has provided specialist care for women with borderline personality disorder (BPD).

Our treatment approach is led by specialist Dialectical Behaviour (DBT) therapists and includes all five functions of a comprehensive dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) programme.

The recent creation of our DBT hub in Isham House, comprising Lower Harlestone and Silverstone DBT programmes for women with Borderline PD, means that with a full multi-disciplinary team 'under one roof' we are able to provide increased personalisation of care and a collaborative approach.

What is Borderline Personality Disorder?

Borderline Personality Disorder is a disorder which is marked by emotional instability, difficulties, challenges in relationships, challenges around your sense of self, thoughts and cognitions, and challenges around being able to tolerate distress, so acting in impulsive ways. Self-harming behaviours, challenges around disordered eating, substance misuse are common. 

Personality Disorders are persistent, pervasive and problematic.

Persistent in that they have persisted through often adolescence and into adulthood. Pervasive in that they run through all walks of an individual's life. It's not just a home problem or a work problem. And problematic in that they cause problems not just to the individual but they cause problems to other people as well.

What we know about borderline personality disorder and it's causes is that there is a biological vulnerability and environmental challenges that interact so that a person living with a personality disorder learns to stop trusting the emotion and starts seeking external views about how it is that they should feel. For a person living with complex a personality disorder, environmental factors which have influenced their emotions and how they interact with the world commonly include sexual abuse, and violence within the house. It is known that 70% of all people with a diagnosed personality disorder have had some form of significant childhood trauma. 

A life worth living

"I would like people to understand that mental illness affects anyone, It doesn’t just affect a certain type of person. Just because you’ve got a mental illness it doesn’t define you as a person, it’s just a part who you are. I’m not Kayleigh because I have a disorder, I’m Kayleigh because I am person and I like horse riding and football.” Kayleigh, 25 years

Kayleigh lives with Borderline Personality Disorder, impacted by childhood trauma. She talks about her time at St Andrew's and how, through working with our expert staff, she has been able to understand and develop the skills to live well with Personality Disorder.

Kayleigh has ambitions to become a Chef and go to College and at St Andrew's she has been able to access Workbridge, our vocational opportunities service, which works alongside a patient's treatment programme developing work and life skills for the future once someone leaves hospital.

Kayleigh also talks about the dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) programme. She describes it as helping to slow her thoughts and give her the tools to help her think rationally about her thoughts, feelings and emotions, especially during stressful or challenging situations.

I've only got support and that is something I'm beyond happy about

Saffron also struggles with borderline personality disorder and anorexia nervosa.

She was being managed in services who did not understand her complexity and support her needs, which saw her being placed on extensive periods of enhanced nursing support and constant observations.

Saffron talks about the feelings she had experienced at other hospitals and what she has experienced at St Andrew's. In nine month's at St Andrew's, Saffron has developed from 3:1 enhanced support to unescorted leave with the support of the clinical staff and by working through a structured dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) programme.

Collaborative decision-making across the multi-disciplinary team (MDT) is also highlighted by Saffron as a positive. She says that decision making is never done in isolation and always taken based on her needs.

The DBT programmes offer women with Borderline Personality Disorder structure allowing women to explore feelings in a safe environment. Saffron praises the programme and the opportunities which have been given to her during her recovery at St Andrew's.