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This is not your typical handbook that provides quick, useful information about a subject. Rather, it is a 150-page powerhouse that contains complete details, guidelines, and everything there is to know about Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD, DSM 301.83) including seven thorough case histories and accompanied by nine complete videos (app.org). The text refers to the videos often, so one learns clearly and best in a practical way by reading and viewing simultaneously.
The title is clever as it describes tested, and proven good psychiatric management about which the senior author has written so many seminal studies. The authors aim to provide the way for professionals to become good enough to treat BPD patients who comprise about 20% of all in- and outpatients.
Regrettably the training of most clinicians, therapists, and treaters is provided solely by their individual supervisors who neither have had any BPD training. To some extent this is responsible for a collective countertransference, as most therapists don't like and try to avoid BPD patients, even though many of them are also quite difficult and challenging.
Internal “splits” (divisions) are part of all of us but BPDs are particularly adept at providing the groundwork for them to flourish. They also lack and need to be able to gain trust. Clinicians who learn to contain their own defensive reactions will become more compassionate and will be better prepared to be helpful.
Good psychiatric management (GPM) borrows heavily from Winnicott and the concepts of the “holding environment” and “good enough” parenting. Even early track therapists can be good enough if they know enough to help and enough not to harm. The patient's sense of self can also improve to “good enough” from bad when trust in the therapist and therapy are gained. This book is appropriate for all psychiatrists and mental health workers who treat BPD patients and in some circumstances, also the patients themselves.
The book design is in