Lived Experience Forum

[chemonro]

I attended the BPD foundation conference in Melbourne yesterday. Oh was really inspiring. I've been meaning to get to my computer and copy and paste my notes of the event across from Facebook to here... 

[MissContent]

Hi Chemonro,

I wasn't able to attend this conference sadly so I will be looking forward to reading your notes. From what I saw of the schedule for the day, it looked to be full of insight and education for all whom attended. So thankful for anything you can share with us all 🙂

[Alessandra1992]

Get posting chemonro. Can't wait to hear all about it

[chemonro]

Professor Andrew Chanen: we take our eyes of the ball when we focus on past trauma (that can't be changed) at the expense of what's going on in patient's lives now.

Need to build a health service response to BPD with consumers and carers as it's focus.

Dr Roy Krawitz : no evidence that dbt is the most effective treatment, just that it has the most published research.

Intense emotions leads to emotional avoidance and thought suppression which leads to greater problems in the long term.

New dbt manual coming out in three weeks

Dr Sathya Rao : BPD is a common psychiatric disorder and is eminently treatable. It is more cost effective to treat than to not treat.

Significant stigma and patients are often refused treatment.

Time for a national population based approach for BPD treatment.

Catherine Bennett : fighting for recovery is fighting for yourself, fighting for who you are, for meaning.Trust your courage : it got you this far. Recovery is worth it.

Indigo Daya : Healing is a much better word than recovery. Taking it slow is the fast way. Promote choice control and power.

Gaby den Hollander: Turning up is a commitment to your own life. Turning up is therapeutic - without it no therapy can occur. 

[NikNik]

Thanks @chemonro -

This is a great summary.

Something caught my eye - Dr Sathya Rao talking about the stigma assosciated with BPD and patients being refused treatment. @joeflood started a thread in the carers forum called "BPD diagnosis being used by hospital to deny treatment"

Would you have any advice about @joeflood 's situation? If so, can you post it in the disccussion which I linked above?

Seems like it's a common problem.

Thanks again for this overview.

Who did you find the most ineresting presenter?

[MissContent]

Thank you kindly Chemonro. Love the quote from Catherine Benett - ''fighting for who are, for meaning''. I am so looking forward to Marsha's revised DBT skills book, I have seen a few preliminery pages that my psychologist gave me and it looks to be more descriptive than her original edition. Lets hope that the contributors recommendations for BPD treatment to be more accessible for sufferers and carers is heard.

[Alessandra1992]

Huge amount of research around ACT, acceptance commitment therapy working with mindfulness and values. Especially with BPD..but what is also fantastic about ACT, is that it works across trauma, drugs, alcohol, depression, in inpatient acute settings and in community settings..
Different to DBT but strong evidence base to support its efficacy..

[chemonro]

One thing that was said at the conference is that lots of treatments work for BPD (ACT and CBT were mentioned) and DBT was just the one for which there has been the most research done.

They also said what doesn't work is the business as usual: drugs plus lock in a psych ward until you improve, with ECT as a last resort. That tends to retraumatise and trigger a relapse.

Whoda thunk?

[chemonro]

Thanks @NikNik I had posted a reply. 

[kato]

Fascinating @chemonro
Thank you for the insight.

I know I can vouch for being turned away from hospital when I was desperate..... it was almost like yep ok bpd, are you a risk to self or others. .. no ok you will be fine go see your gp

I hope you post more from the conference