Posted by fallsfall on May 23, 2006, at 7:09:43
In reply to Re: workshop, posted by Dr. Bob on May 23, 2006, at 0:31:06
I went to a talk about apologies. The main thing I picked up is that it is important to make sure that it is clear exactly what is being apologized for. "I'm sorry if I did something wrong" doesn't cut it. Apologizing for squirting whipped cream in someone's face doesn't help if they are crying because they hit their head.
I also went to a 3 hour talk on Borderline Personality Disorder. Very interesting. The big name was John Gunderson. He changed his talk at the last minute so his slides were out of order, but when he was answering questions he was really on top of everything.
Mary Zanarini (from McLean Hospital) was the chair and showed 10 year followup data on borderlines. 80% had remitted. Very impressive. She postulates that other studies don't show as much improvement because they don't follow the patients for long enough. With Borderlines, it seems that there are a set of initial symptoms (i.e. self injury) that are dealt with first. These symptoms DO respond to treatment, but not as quickly as the psychiatric world would like (hence the typical bad prognosis). But there are also a set of longer term symptoms (i.e. emptiness) that persist for a long time and ARE responsive to therapy, but certainly not in the short term. Her talk was very hopeful for BPD patients.
There was discussion of studies comparing DBT with other treatments. In general I think that people think that DBT is a good treatment, but that it may not be the only one. They also seem to be trying to determine which parts of DBT are effective.
This group (self-selected for interest in BPD) acknowleged that BPD patients can be challenging, but seemed interested in finding ways to help. It was a facinating symposium.
Thanks, Dr. Bob, for giving us this opportunity to speak and learn. This meant a lot to me.
Falls.
poster:fallsfall
thread:537862
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20060517/msgs/647202.html