Customer Reviews

Imbroglio: Rising to the Challenges of Borderline Personality Disorder

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This book is probably a good introduction to Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) for someone who is first reading about this disorder. Personally, I was looking for something a little more rigorous and authoritative. The author admits to having no special expertise in the subject, but has interviewed experts and others to arrive at her understanding of BPD. If you're looking for a top-notch, clear and understandable discussion of BPD, I would recommend Marsha Linehan's "Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder." It offers an expertly written account by someone who is actively treating borderline patients and is on the cutting edge of the current scientific research on BPD.

Having been diagnosed with BPD, I found this book helpful in many ways. It helped me to see what other's were seeing in my actions. It helped me know that I "wasn't crazy." It helped me to see how I could help those near me to help and understand me, and my illness. For other's with this diagnosis, I do want to add that some of the testimonies can hit a little too close to home.

This book is the one I finally bought for myself out of all the current books on the subject. It successfully walks a fine line between being too overly "popular" in nature to be useful and too achademicly oriented to be readable. At 400 pages it is not a casual read. Be ready for occasionally dense and often contrary insights from most of the "big thinkers" in the field. Perhaps not the first book you should buy on this subject but a highly recomended next step for any person desiring to extend their knowledge beyond the level of what is in the generally recomended popular books on this still mysterious subject.

I am the webowner of "Borderline Personality Disorder Today." This book has everything you always wanted to know about borderline personality disorder regarding the basics of the BPD in this book. Includes different views of etiology and treatment. Discusses what the person with BPD experiences. Very informative for folks with BPD, families and clinicians. Highly recommended.

While difficult to read at times, Ms. Cauwels portrays withdignity and humility the suffering of those with borderlinepersonality disorder. This suffering is accompanied by courageous striving of the ill to educate their environment to the whims of their disorder. The vagarities of the policies and politics of the DSM and the disdain of some "professionals" for the perspective of patients and writer alike is intriguing and dismaying. Highly recommended for patients (consumers), their families, and open-minded mental health professionals.