WHAT ACTUALLY CAUSES BPD? IT’S NOT WHAT YOU THINK!

A lot of core-injured people presume there was some sort of “major trauma” that occurred during childhood that left them with personality disorder features. What’s far more accurate, is there were dozens, maybe hundreds of little emotional betrayals, setbacks and disappointments that cumulatively derailed this child's capacity to trust another with their care. “Death by a thousand cuts,” is how one of my clients aptly described his routinely painful experiences in childhood, with his mother.

This singular issue more than anything else, makes it very difficult for a client to form a reliable, sturdy, trusted bond with their clinician. The sad fact is, if an individual cannot experience what a genuine, safe bond of attachment feels like with the practitioner treating them, they’ll have no frame of reference for what those emotions feel like in the body, and will forever lack the ability to securely attach to anyone. Hence, their BPD traits cannot be resolved.