In my Part I post, I described how a lot of the difficult behavior of patients with (BPD) in their intimate relationships is designed to elicit in the observer one of three reactions: helplessness, anxious , and overt hostility. Furthermore, I expressed the view that, even though they will make Herculean efforts to induce these reactions, and are very good and finding other folk's vulnerabilities in order to do so, they secretly hope they will fail in their efforts.

(A caveat about this series of posts that I should have included but did not is that the behavioral recommendations I give do not necessarily apply to either party in the relationship between an adult with BPD and his or her own parent. Altering that relationship is far more complicated and almost often requires extensive by a knowledgeable therapist).

Every time they succeed in eliciting one of the three reactions, they will do more of whatever it was that worked; every time they fail, they will do less of whatever did not work. They will not give up easily, and if they've known you for a while, if one trick does not work, they will have a whole repertoire of other behaviors from which to choose. They will know how to push all of your buttons in the most effective way possible.



Last, because of the variable intermittent reinforcement schedule, if you only occasionally react in the "wrong" way to them, that is worse than reacting badly to them all the time, because they will try that much harder and longer to elicit the "desired" response. In the post, I indicated that in my next post in the series I would start by saying what not to do.



So let's dispense with that. It's fairly simple, so this will be a relatively short post. In future posts, I will suggest counterstrategies for the most typical BPD strategies for eliciting the three responses, and then finally advise readers about what to do in the inevitable event that they slip up - so that the variable intermittent reinforcement schedule does not kick in and all former progress lost.



Important Cautions: Please be advised that sticking to this program is extremely difficult, so the services of a therapist who knows about these patterns are usually necessary. Also, this section is designed for adults dealing with BPD adults — over 23 years old, actually.



Without further ado, what not to do: