Favorite Person & Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)

hi today we're gonna talk about a concept very familiar to a lot of individuals diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and that is favorite person we're also going to talk about the four relationship types associated with favourite person so let's get started so first let's sort of explain what favorite person is now favourite person is different than a best friend okay so a best friend these are people that you love and count on but a favorite person is someone you have an emotional dependence on someone who can make or break your day so this is an individual that provides a sense of emotional validation and it clarifies where you are emotionally a lot of times it can give people along the border line spectrum of the sense of security safety understanding but not always and let's talk about the four relationship types first okay so the first one I call this the roller coaster and this is where you shift between idealization and devaluation and this is when anything changes it could be that a favorite person's the tone of their voice their body language not responding to tax an anticipated amount of time and the shifting only goes between the two extremes it's like it's like that you're happiest when when they tell you that that they love you and there but when they're not or you perceived that there's an issue you go to the complete opposite you go to that sense maybe self-harming suicidal thoughts when anything changes on unexpectedly so it's that roller coaster it's an emotional roller coaster that that you experience another relationship type with favorite person is called distorted others now this is a it's a plutonic sort of love that you have for this individual now you might not even know the person very well but you still idealize them so much do you hold them in such high esteem you create your own image of who they are what you expect they would be like so for you they become exactly what you need so you build up this concept of this distorted others because a lot of times it's very difficult for them to live up to that so you end up with a lot of internal conflict a lot of sort of exponent unfulfilled expectations and things of that nature and that's called the distorted other now the other relationship type is called testing and confirming and a lot of folks along the border line spectrum do this quite quite often testing and confirming but with the favorite person it's even more intense there's a lot more anxiety associated with it there can also be some severe depression and other issues let me explain what it is so when testing and confirming um its meaning someone so bad that it's physically painful when they leave it's apologizing for every little thing because you don't want to give them a reason to leave you hey it's picking fights to make sure that it'll stay so you're always testing well how far can i push so you may create arguments you may be overly sensitive and you're saying well if I do this and they stay then they really love me and back of course can can put you on a really negative cycle to eventually push someone so much that they do actually leave put them to the point where they are leaving and that's why these treatment techniques we're going to talk about in ammo are so important and so valuable for you now the last type of relationship that you can have with your favorite person is that missing internal part so they're external ok so what this is is that this this has been described to me by a client who said that they're like my drug whenever i get their attention i'm happy for a while but when i don't it's like the world's falling apart and i don't know what to do next there that missing puzzle piece and it's that missing internal part that you're looking for externally to give you that sense of completion now here's the thing about the four relationship types are they mutually exclusive and that's no no they're not so you you can experience these four different relationship types with the same favorite person but here here becomes the issue right before we talk about some of those treatment techniques when when we expect so much of someone else there tends to be a lot of variability and I think if you're watching this video you probably know what I'm talking about right is that we can depend on people but it's difficult and the expectation of a hundred-percent dependence and fulfillment becomes very very difficult so the best thing to do what I do with a lot of my clients that are longer borderline spectrum is build this sense of empowerment this sense of self-efficacy if you've seen my Instagram and Twitter stuff you've seen that I've put a lot of stuff out there about empowerment about sort of building who you are and growing who you are and that that's the idea because this favorite person although it sounds like that teddy bear that we expect that provides us so much safety and security when it's someone else the variability of another human being plays its part as well so when that that becomes really difficult and very difficult to manage let's talk about five treatment techniques ways to sort of manage this concept of favorite person okay so the first one which I alluded to just a moment ago is finding a transitional object now what is a transitional object a transitional object it could be something that that you grew up with it is an object it is not a living person it is an object that means so much to you that maybe you put a lot of emotion in for example when I was 15 16 years old my dad gave me this it was a little pocket knife and it was a Roy Rogers and trigger pocketknife a lot of you may not know who that is I'm dating myself a little bit so stay with me if you can he was a television cowboy all right a little bit like The Lone Ranger but not as popular okay but so in this knife and when he gave it to me it meant the world to me because he got it from his dad my grandfather when he came to the United States and that that just meant the world to me that's a transitional object that's something that I have high value for that means a lot to me that I have a strong emotional connection to it and when I when I hold that and I touch that I really feel a connection to to my dad and do you have a transitional object a lot of my clients I'll often ask them what is your transitional object and for those who have worked with me we talk a lot about transition office we build a transitional object and this is a lot of time it's a post-it note and when we talk about as we're going through treatment we talk about some issues and concerns that they have and what I call core content these are the things that drive some of those what I call maladaptive or negative behaviors and I write them down on the post-it and once we're done with treatment I give my client the post-it note and that's a transitional object it's a part of something that we've created that means a lot to my client and they take it with them once they've graduated or finished or come to a completion point of treatment that's that transitional object but it's not as variable compare it to your favorite person there isn't as much variability you have this transitional object that gives you a sense of security a sense of hope that means a lot to you but without the variability of dependence on someone else okay so that's your transitional object the next one is finding that relationship balance now with that favorite person you want to try to have it the relationship with right you want to have healthy understanding recognizing that they do have flaws recognizing that their emotions are variable right as well so what we want to do is is to get this relationship balance when you feel yourself starting to questioning maybe you start to feel a lot of anxiety you feel those internal triggers whatever they may be what I want you to do is stop process the experience figure out what the end result is what do you want out of the end result hey and then re-engage and that end result could be that you want a healthier relationship right with your favorite person you want your favorite person to to respond to you in a particular way what's the best way to do that okay what is the way that makes your favorite person feel safe feel understood and who wants to interact with you so that that's another one finding that relationship balance another one because of all the anxiety and stress that tends to be associated with favorite person mindfulness is another critical component I have some I have a video on mindfulness you can find others out there as well you can google mindfulness there's a lot of different mindfulness practices out there what mindfulness does is it's not meditation mindfulness brings you to the present gives you a sense of calm and awareness of what's going on around you and you can use mindfulness before you interact with that favorite person before your emotions are propelling you to engage with that favorite person okay which sometimes that engagement is it can be the testing and confirming it can be some of that roller coaster that idealization devaluing so what we want to do is get this sense of mindfulness a sense of peace and understanding of where you are to engage in a more effective manner okay and the next one is to rate your emotional intensity get get an idea this is good if you're along the border line spectrum or if you have clients along the border line spectrum rate your emotional intensity okay so 10 of course would be the most emotionally intense you've ever been this could be before a self-harm act this could be before a harmful act towards others whatever it may be okay and then what is zero zero could be that perfect state of calm okay so what we want to do is you want to rate your emotional intensity get that idea so before you engage if you're going on that favorite person roller coaster or you have that sense of distorted other relationship with that favorite person what is your emotional intensity scale where are you because you don't want to interact if you're seven eight nine or ten because that's your emotions driving you and we don't want to do that what we want to do is we want to engage right possibly a six but when we're three four and five we're clear-headed were emotionally engaged but not so much so that we're not making good choices and that's what we want to do I'm going to build that relationship in a healthy manner and you can you can do it I assure you and then the last one is your favorite person sometimes individuals long to borderline spectrum well isolate all other individuals because they want that favorite person in their life but what I want you to do is to challenge this and to expand your social circle who are healthy others that you can have in your life who are folks that make you feel good about yourself who challenged you appropriately right who aren't derisively who don't call you names right when you fail or anything like that who accept that right who helped you move up feel better who empower you and that's what you want okay so expand your social circle with positive others so today we talked about borderline personality disorder favorite person I'd love to hear your comments any suggestions for future videos you might have please subscribe if you'd like and I have some other videos here if you're interested I'd love to hear from you and as always I your time and appreciate your time and thank you very much and I hope you have a great day take care bye bye

Channel: Dr. Daniel Fox

Views: 662,084

Keywords: borderline, borderline personality disorder, bpd, dbt, disorder, disorders, emotionally unstable, eupd, living with borderline personality disorder, personality disorders, splitting, daniel fox personality, daniel fox personality disorders, bpd favorite person, favorite person bpd, bpd favorite person romantic, personality disorder, bpd and stress, bpd treatment, bpd symptoms, dr fox, mental illness, ptsd, mental health, depression, dr fox bpd, psychology, life hacks

Id: iLKTVvBjnsk

Length: 12min 19sec (739 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 30 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/Techiedad91]

Daniel Fox has some very great, informative videos.

Todd Grande does as well, but he is less interesting imo, but informative.

Kati Morton has some good videos as well on the subject of BPD

[u/pinkinspace]

This would’ve been super helpful about a year ago haha However, I’m glad I’m seeing this now bc a year ago I would’ve ignored it.

Thank you for sharing!

[u/clb0910]

Wow! I had no idea there were wonderful people like this in the world, who are willing to share insight for free. My brain is boggled, but my relationship with my partner (definitely my FP) seems much more clear now... Thank you OP for sharing this!!

[u/[deleted]]

Is it possible to post the link to youtube?