Summary:

Welcome back! In today’s episode, we take a bird’s eye view of personality disorders. We look at the categorical definition of a personality disorder in the DSM-5 TR and compare and contrast it to an IRT understanding of personality disorders. We discuss stigma related to the term ‘personality disorder’ and our own ambivalence around this terminology.

Over the course of the episode, we talk about ways IRT helps to destigmatize personality disorders and humanize our patients, through working to understand a person’s specific learning history and relational patterns as ways of adapting at one time. We also discuss the role of trauma in development of personality disorders, ways IRT holds hope for positive, meaningful change, the role of finding the Green self in fostering this change, and our musings about what exactly changes in a person undergoing IRT treatment. This is a fun episode - we hope you enjoy!

If you like this episode, please subscribe, like, and share with your friends. Let us know what you want to hear us talk about in future episodes - we are listening! Check out the ⁠IRT Institute ⁠website for more information on IRT, including training for mental health professionals.

Timestamps:

• (4:02) - General PD definition DSM-5 TR

• (8:25) - Stigma around personality disorders

• (11:30) - Some relational summaries for avoidant, schizoid, dependent

• (13:30) - 1993 Lorna book

• (15:45) - Our ambivalence about PD labels

• (24:45) - Relational signatures of personality disorders

• (29:00) - Trait theory vs Red

• (31:30) - Copy processes making problem patterns specific to learning history

• (33:33) - Role of trauma in personality disorders

• (34:35) - Lorna’s metaphor of relational harmonics and letting go of GOL

• (37:31) - Does IRT change the core of a person?

  
  

  References:

  • Benjamin, L.S. (1993/1996). Interpersonal Diagnosis and Treatment of Personality Disorder. New York: Guilford Press.
  • Stucker-Rozovsky, E. (2022). ​​Operationalizing the Gift of Love (GOL) in Interpersonal Reconstructive Therapy (IRT): An examination of the role of meaning reconstruction in therapeutic change. [Doctoral dissertation, James Madison University]. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global.