10 Best Borderline Personality Disorder Books & What is BPD?

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• Top 10 Books on Borderline Personality Disorder
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Learn More:

• What Causes BPD?
• BPD in Men
• BPD Treatment
• Borderline Schizophrenia
• What is Borderline Personality Disorder
• Mental Health Treatment
• Inpatient Mental Health
• Borderline Personality Disorder and Bipolar Disorder
• Mood and Personality Disorder Treatment
• Psychiatric Disorders Treatment

2. I Hate You–Don’t Leave Me

After more than three decades as the essential guide to borderline personality disorder (BPD), the third edition of I” Hate You—Don’t Leave Me” now reflects the most up-to-date research that has opened doors to the neurobiological, genetic, and developmental roots of the disorder, as well as connections between BPD and substance abuse, sexual abuse, post-traumatic stress syndrome, ADHD, and eating disorders.

This book indicates that pharmacological and psychotherapeutic advancements give real hope for success in treating and understanding BPD.

This is considered one of the must-read books for borderline personality disorder for a good reason. Its third edition remains a comprehensive look at what borderline personality is, how trauma impacts it, and current treatments.

3. Sometimes I Act Crazy: Living with Borderline Personality Disorder

As a source of hope and practical advice for BPD sufferers and those who love them, this new book by Dr. Jerold J. Kreisman and Hal Straus, bestselling authors of I Hate You, Don’t Leave Me, offers proven techniques that help you:

• Manage mood swings
• Develop lasting relationships
• Improve your self-esteem
• Keep negative thoughts at bay
• Control destructive impulses
• Understand your treatment options
• Find professional help

1.4%

It’s estimated that 1.4% of the adult U.S. population experiences BPD.

Source: NCBI

20%

Surveys have estimated the prevalence of borderline personality disorder to be 20% in the inpatient psychiatric population.

Source: NCBI

4. The Borderline Personality Disorder Workbook: An Integrative Program to Understand and Manage Your BPD

If you’ve been diagnosed with BPD, you may feel several emotions—including shock, shame, sadness, abandonment, emptiness, or even anger. Even worse, you may be tempted to research your diagnosis online, only to find doomsday scenarios and terrible prognoses everywhere you click. Take a deep breath. You can get through this—and this is one of the borderline personality disorder books that will help guide you.

This therapist-recommended workbook may have already been recommended to you: it is a staple in BPD self-help. If your BPD diagnosis terrifies you (and everything you’ve read online only makes it worse), this workbook offers honest, concrete advice on navigating your BPD. Using evidence-based dialectical behavior therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, and more, this workbook meets you where you are and works with you to create a stable, healthy life.

5. Mindfulness for Borderline Personality Disorder: Relieve Your Suffering Using the Core Skill of Dialectical Behavior Therapy

This is one of the borderline personality books that will look at how mindfulness can be used to address the specific symptoms of BPD, teaching the basics of mindfulness, providing specific mindfulness exercises, application to the symptoms of BPD, and examples from patients as they have begun the path out of suffering using mindfulness.

Mindfulness has been proven beneficial for many mental health conditions, and borderline personality disorder is no exception. This workbook outlines several ways mindfulness can help you work through your BPD, lean on DBT techniques to soothe overwhelmed emotions, address relationship problems, and more.

6. Coping with BPD: DBT and CBT Skills to Soothe the Symptoms of Boderline Personality Disorder

In this much-needed book about borderline personality disorder, two renowned borderline personality disorder (BPD) experts offer simple, easy-to-use skills drawn from dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) and cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) to help you address the most common issues of BPD, such as intense feelings of anger, depression, and anxiety. 

Thanks to the BPD diagnosis, those tired of struggling with intense emotions will appreciate this compassionate guidebook. This book about borderline personality disorder outlines how to soothe common issues those with BPD face and establish healthy routines when emotions go haywire. It also addresses substance abuse, negative self-talk, and other common side effects of living with BPD.

7. Loving Someone with Borderline Personality Disorder: How to Keep Out-of-Control Emotions from Destroying Your Relationship

Those with BPD get a bad reputation: they’re portrayed as violent, manipulative, and in some cases, uncaring. Author Dr. Shari Y. Manning knows that’s not the cause. Those suffering from BPD can be immensely kind and considerate but can struggle in personal relationships and push away those they love with destructive behaviors. Understanding your partner and how their BDP makes them act the way they do takes information and patience. Loving Someone With Borderline Personality Disorder offers a framework to help you work alongside your partner with BPD to create a caring, healthy relationship that meets both of your needs.

8. Stop Walking on Eggshells: Taking Your Life Back When Someone You Care About Has Borderline Personality Disorder

This compassionate book about borderline personality disorder will enable you to:

• Make sense out of the chaos
• Stand up for yourself and assert your needs
• Defuse arguments and conflicts
• Protect yourself and others from violent behavior 

If you struggle with someone you love manipulating you or feeling overly controlled by a loved one, they may have BPD. If so, there are ways to find peace again in your home. This self-help book outlines how to set boundaries, establish your needs, defuse arguments, and more.

9. Say What You Mean: A Mindful Approach to Nonviolent Communication

While not explicitly written for those with BPD, author Oren Jay Sofer is a mindfulness expert, and Say What You Mean offers a few solutions to common communication issues. He put together this book to help anyone who struggles with communicating in anger, whether in a BPD relationship or life in general.

This is a good read for anyone who wishes to communicate more compassionately and effectively, but it is especially useful for those dealing with BPD. Sofer outlines how to remain confident in conversations, understand the true intent of conversations, and navigate anxiety during complex topics. 

10. The High-Conflict Couple: A Dialectical Behavior Therapy Guide to Finding Peace, Intimacy, and Validation

This book about borderline personality disorder adapts the powerful techniques of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) into skills. You can use these skills to tame out-of-control emotions in your relationship. Using mindfulness and distress tolerance techniques, you’ll learn how to de-escalate angry situations before they have a chance to explode into violent fights. Other approaches will help you disclose your fears, longings, and other vulnerabilities to your partner and validate his or her experiences in return. You’ll discover ways to manage problems with negotiation, not conflict, and to find true acceptance and closeness with the person you love the most.

Highly-reactive couples – those quick to anger or argue – usually need more than the standard relationship advice available. This can be all too common for couples where one partner struggles with BPD.