Customer Reviews

Borderline Personality Disorder Demystified: An Essential Guide for Understanding and Living with BPD

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is an excellent overall resource for BPD. It covers the history, causes and course of the disorder as well as the most common treatments both pharmacologically and therapeutically.

The scope of the book is very broad and includes information for family members, lots of additional resources, co-occurring disorders and how this problem shows up in children.

If you have a scientific bent, you will benefit a lot from the chapter on BPD and the brain. There is a lot of detail on the specific neural pathways involved in impulsive behavior, memory impairment, etc. This information is nicely summarized in easy to understand diagrams and there is a simplified bottom line explanation at the end of the chapter. This section is well explained and anyone should be able to understand it, even people intimidated by scientific explanations.

The overall tone of the book is compassionate and hopeful. The author had a sister who had this order and a lot of his motivation for writing it comes from this space of caring and wanting to share both his experience and knowledge. Being a psychiatrist, he dovetails deep knowledge with understanding and compassion.

As you may know, BPD is often misdiagnosed and this book helps differentiate multiple things that may be going on and explains how to get clear on whether or not BPD is really something that is going on. I think this is a very important section and it provides enough detail to be useful, but in general he keeps his explanations of other disorders short and to the point.

The discussion of psychotherapies is excellent and collected into an excellent summary of which ones are best and the indication for when to use them. There is a misconception that the prognosis for Borderline Disorder is not very good among many people, this is dispelled in this book and the supporting arguments for this conclusion are good.

An added bonus is current research needs and directions. If you have BPD, you will be very interested in knowing where this area is headed and hearing about the cutting edge of today's research.

I think the book could have benefited from better organization, design and more careful editing. However, the content is excellent and there is a lot of useful information in a relatively small space. This book is a one-stop resource and a nice compliment to other books that focus on one particular dimension of this issue. The shortcoming in how the information is organized and presented is my only reason for giving it a four rating, the content is excellent and it's a fairly easy read for most people.

I have a good background in psychology and also in physiology and biochemistry. At one time, I did drug research and currently I work in the psychology field. I have read a number of books on this topic and this is one of the best.

Thank God for Dr. Friedel's compassionate, informational, and helpful book. Finally a book to replace "I Hate You..." which is outdated. I suffer from BPD and am just now coming to terms with the illness. I am a mental health professional who has been used to all the "inside" jokes about BPD. I have been terrified of the diagnosis but can no longer reject it. This book has taught me that I am not alone, and that I am not a big freak. Everything I experience (and that those in my life experience with me) is real. It is full of information about treatment and is also full of acceptance and hope. Of any book that I would recommend for both professionals and persons with BPD, THIS would be the one!!!!

This book is thorough, comprehensive and very INSIGHTFUL in its description of Borderline Personality Disorder, and offers detailed lists of available treatments, medications and resources to help patients and their families deal with this desease. I know it because I suffer from BPD and Dr. Friedel describes me to a T... I am the anxious-fearful BPD sufferer with a dose of depression... I was pleasantly surprised to find a clinician who finally gets what I think and feel, something that is not very common.

Before reading this book, I had been told I was suffering from BPD, but I really did not understand what BPD was, even while attending therapy. After reading this book, I finally believe I suffer from this disorder, and I am more informed about what kind of therapist and treatment I want and deserve.

Mr. Friedel is neither reproachful nor punishing to those suffering from BDP, something that I highly appreciate. He is a flash of fresh air among the psychiatrists and psychologists I have known, who somehow believed I did not have a real problem with my emotions and myself, and therefore believed, I could completely control my actions regardless of the level of suffering I was in... (A psychiatrist after a crisis took me aside and told me he would restrain me with a force jacket if I continued asking him questions; and I was supended from therapy, of all things, at a hospital treatment program after an on-site self-destructive incident without a discussion of the reasons I was hurting myself... that goes far enough to show that patients NEED to be discriminat about who they choose as a therapist, and Dr. Friedel points this out: not all therapists are willing nor able to treat BPD patients.)

Dr. Robert O. Friedel REALLY knows what he is talking about, and I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about this poorly understood disorder.

As a person living with BPD, I cannot express adequately my relief, gratitude and newfound hope upon reading this remarkable book. I recommend it highly to anyone with this disorder, as well as their families and therapists.

I agree with the other reviewer -- the scant information in this book can all be easily found on the web. In fact, Helen's BPD Resources website actually has much more information than is contained in this book and does a better job of explaining the disorder to boot.

He tries to cover too many topics and because of that each topic is just a shallow overview. There is one chapter explaining the diagnosis -- that's right, just one chapter, and it's basically just the DSM-IV with no new insight.

The chapter on the history of the diagnosis struck me as irrelevent to most readers. The two case histories were very brief, lacking in details, and did not paint a broad picture of the manifestation of behaviors that can occur from BPD.

The treatment information is shallow, without recommending one over another. He basically runs the gamut of all available therapies and drugs used to treat *any* mental illness without doing much to differentiate which is most effective for BPD -- though he does have a preference for low-dose anti-psychotics. Now that I've told you that you can save yourself reading those chapters, because that's the only important point you will glean from it.

I could've written this book just from the research I've been doing on my own on the web. I think it's more important to give people, especially non-BPD's, an in depth understanding beyond the DSM-IV of what this disorder is really like. For that, please get "Sometimes I Act Crazy" by Kreisman instead. If you only read one book on BPD (and I've read several), you should read "Sometimes I Act Crazy." Skip this one entirely.

We are writing to applaud the book "Borderline Personality Disorder Demystified" by Dr. Robert Friedel.
My wife and I have been deeply involved with those who have the BPD diagnosis. We have been voracious readers of virtually everything relevant to this diagnosis. Over the past four years while seeking to educate ourselves on BPD, we have become teachers of an excellent course for families touched by this disorder. When Dr. Friedel's book was first published, we adopted it as our "handbook", thanks to its easy readability and thorough coverage of the many challenging and sometimes confusing aspects of BPD. We also were touched by the author's personal exposure through his sister, and it was reassuring to gain first-hand knowledge from a practicing psychiatrist who not only runs a BPD clinic, but also is involved in research, writes scientific articles and teaches on this disorder. We offer an array of reading materials on BPD in our family classes, yet have found no other book as versatile, factual and useful for the entire family including the person with the BPD diagnosis. People enter our classes with expressions of helplessness and despair and it has been of great comfort to add Dr. Friedel's message of inspiration and hope. Again, we enthusiastically recommend this book as a "must read". J. Hall

I was diagnosed with Bi-Polar II and Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). This past September. Not only did I not understand this disease, but I didn't understand how or where I got it from. I think I have probably orderdered every book on Amazon relating to BPD. All of them seemed to be a blame game. Feeling sorry for the spouse and family and those close to the person with BPD. The books that tried to explain it to the borderline were useless, There wasn't a whole lot of explaining of what the disease really was and what to do about it. I was lucky, I had a mental and physical breakdown. They did a Neuropyscholical Evaluation on me and that is how scientifically, came to the conclusion and diagnosis of BPD. It's a very difficult disease to diagnose because there are often underlying other issues that go along with it, ADHD, Bi-Polar, Depression, Anxiety etc... This book was not a cry baby book. It gives straight medical facts and tells you how to get help and the right people to get it from. It also goes into genetic factors and medications used to help BPD. Since I have been on the right medication (which is a lot of mix and match to find the meds and dosage that is right for you). It can be frustrating, but don't give up! Your Psychologist will find the right meds after he diagnoses you properly. Thaerapy is also crucial. It teaches people how to function in a strange world that we don't understand. I recommend it to anyone close to you also, so they can get a better understanding about what our inside lonely world feels like. Good Luck!

As the mother of a BPD, my lifelong "sense" of something being wrong as been explained. I've read other books but this one integrates many of the behaviors I've observed and couldn't understand. It has allowed me to forgive myself and her.

This is an excellent book on BPD written by a genuine expert on the subject - not some self-appointed guru.

The book begins by defining what BPD is and how it is diagnosed. A table of diagnostic criteria is provided. The book then ventures into the history and causes of BPD. It then gets a little "academic" with chapters on the mechanism of the disease. This part will prove very intersting to curious readers who want all the details. For the easy readers, it may seem a bit wordy and technical. The best thing about this book is that it only gives the readers the facts.

The final chapters deal with the key elements of treatment, medications and therapy. The book ends on a positive note with plenty of advice on how to cope if a loved one suffers from BPD. Not too much specifics on coping with BPD, but definitely good recommendations for positive paths and directions to take.

This book was an excellent resource for me and my family when I was first diagnosed. It really described how I felt and it helped my friends and family understand a lot of why I do things the way I do them and that it really isn't all about me being a brat and manipulative, it's a disorder and the person with BPD suffers just as much as the family. However, I do feel that if you have internet access the info in here is only going to mirror that. But if you are a loved one is diagnosed and you don't want to spend hours searching for relevant information or you just want your family to understand it's a great guide!