borderline personality disorder as “a serious psychiatric disorder involving a pervasive sense of emptiness, impulsivity, difficulty with emotions, transient stress-induced psychosis and frequent suicidal thoughts or attempts.”

In an effort to maintain calm, families often struggle to avoid situations that can set off another outburst. They walk on eggshells, a doomed effort because it is not possible to predict what will prompt an outburst.

families need to understand why borderline patients act and react the way they do, then respond in ways that validate the patients’ feelings and help them regain and maintain emotional control.

the value of the therapy can be thwarted if patients return to an environment that misunderstands them.

families have to learn how to “soothe themselves, to realize that though the situation is awful, not to blame or be judgmental of the person but to see the person as also suffering.”