The Essential Family Guide to Borderline Personality Disorder: New Tools and Techniques to Stop Walking on Eggshells (Paperback)

by Randi Kreger (Author)
Key Phrases: borderline family member, schema therapy, borderline clients, Power Tool, Set Limits, Finding Professional Help (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
This book offers hope for those who think their situation has none.
--Rachel Reiland, author of Get Me Out of Here (Rachel Reiland )

Product Description

For family members of people with borderline personality disorder (BPD), home life is routinely unpredictable and frequently unbearable. Extreme mood swings, impulsive behaviors, and suicidal tendencies—common conduct among those who suffer from the disorder—leave family members feeling confused, hurt, and helpless.

In her pioneering first book Stop Walking on Eggshells, co-authored with Paul T. Mason, Randi Kreger outlined the fundamental differences in the way that people with borderline personality disorder (BPD) relate to the world. Now, with The Essential Family Guide to Borderline Personality Disorder, she takes readers to the next level, giving them straightforward tools to get off the emotional roller coaster and repair relationships with loved ones with BPD. Kreger answers the questions family members most want to ask about:  the symptoms and treatment of BPD, including why BPD is so misdiagnosed; how symptoms can differ by age and gender; and how addiction and other disorders complicate BPD. She then outlines how families can set boundaries and communicate differently in order to help themselves and their loved ones cope with this bewildering form of mental illness.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 250 pages
• Publisher: Hazelden; 1 edition (October 15, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1592853633
• ISBN-13: 978-1592853632
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #9,297 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must Read for family, friends, clinicians and judges, November 25, 2008

By	T. CRAWFORD - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Very few books can actually change your life. Randi Kreger has written two. "Stop Walking on Eggshells" (SWOE) changed my life and the lives of many others. "The Essential Family Guide" now offers the tools to family members and professionals to help deal with BPD with great efficiency and effectiveness.

"The Essential Family Guide" hits the nail directly on the head and drives it home. Where SWOE left off, the Family Guide picks up. It is critical reading for everyone - including counselors, psychologists, and legal professionals - living with or dealing with someone with Borderline Personality Disorder (a "BPD").

After reading through the first few chapters, I realized that "The Essential Family Guide" is the next step in my own recovery in dealing with my BPD ex-spouse and in caring for my children exposed to this disorder. If you are coping with a BPD - personally or professionally - you must read the Essential Family Guide.

I think of and hear from others out there dealing with the craziness of a BPD in their lives and searching for understanding. If I can convince one person to read The Family Guide and get the benefit that I have received from Randi's books, then I will have done a good thing.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars On a scale of one to five, this rates a ten!, December 8, 2008

By	Barbara A. Oakley (Rochester, MI USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I thought nothing could ever top the first book Randi Kreger co-wrote ("Stop Walking on Eggshells") but her newest book does it---I wish I could give ten stars instead of five. This seemingly simple book is one of the top five most useful books I've ever read in my life---I've already reread it twice, and will be reading it again in the years to come to help keep me in the right mental place. If you want to not only understand emotionally troubled people, but also do something concrete to help yourself, push the button and order this book right now.

There are so many powerful and easy-to-use tools provided in this book that it's tough to figure out which ones to mention in this review. They all give concrete answers to the seemingly unanswerable question that always arises whenever you're faced by a troubled personality--what do you do about it?

For example, I've always heard that you need to "set firm limits" with people who would overstep your boundaries. But personally, I never really quite understood what the word "limits" actually meant, and I certainly didn't know how to set them. Nothing I ever read on the topic helped much, because what little I found was so vague.

But Randi gives example after concrete example of what limit setting actually means in a variety of situations, emphasizing throughout that it's important to understand your own greater sense of what's fair and right for yourself as well as for others. Her chapter on uncovering what keeps you feeling "stuck" provides a terrific explanation of a problem in relationships with people who are troubled. In the chapter on communication, Randi describes precisely how to communicate and actually be heard.

And the good news is that it IS possible to get your troubled person to make changes---Randi tells precisely how to do it, even while you are improving your own health and life.

If you are dealing with a person who is making your life miserable and who leaves you constantly feeling as if you are walking on eggshells, you need this extraordinary book.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Blockbuster from Randi Kreger, November 14, 2008

By	Rita K. Closson (Kansas City, MO) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Now in 2008, Randi Kreger has another blockbuster book to add to her wonderful treasure trove of resources.

*The Essential Family Guide to Borderline Personality Disorder: New Tools and Techniques to Stop Walking on Eggshells* is stimulating, challenging, educating and thought-provoking. It is an essential book for both the practioner, family member, students of mental health, psychology and Borderline Personality Disorder.

Everyone interested in mental health with some personal experiences of BPD will love this book.

This book is absolutely superb. It has a stimulating collection of essays that taken together really open up the subject of Borderline Personality Disorder.

*The Essential Family Guide to Borderline Personality Disorder* is full of information on how to find a therapist, insurance concerns,and different types of treatments and therapies.

The second part of the book is about the Power Tools for the non BP to get a grasp on how to set limits, boundaries, take care of themselves and to be heard by the borderline by using great communication skills and reinforcing the right behaviors.

Most 'family guides' focus on a broad spectrum or general overview and very little of the personality disorders. *The Essential Family Guide to Borderline Personality Disorder* is a family guide that specifically focuses on Borderline Personality Disorder for the non and what to do about the disorder and what steps to take.

This is an excellent book. It deserves more than five stars. It is well worth reading by those seriously interested in Borderline Personality Disorder. It's a scholarly academic text that is well supported by recent research and literature in the field, but remains easy to read and understand, given the complexity of the material it covers.

*The Essential Family Guide to Borderline Personality Disorder* is very well-researched with contact information, references, resources, up-to-date brain research, genetics, biological approaches and the role of the pharmaceutical industry, together with well-represented and refreshing analysis of psychological and social approaches.

Rita Closson, M.A. Social Psychologist
Kansas City, Missouri