Program
08h15 am Registration open
08h50 am Opening remarks/ Welcome – Lise Laporte, PhD
09H00 am Personality Disorders: Seeing the Forest Through the Trees - Dr. Ronad Fraser
09h10 am Background to GPM and Interpersonal Hypersensitivity - Dr. Lois Choi-Kain
10h30 am Health break
10h45 am Overall Principles and Getting Started - Dr. Lois Choi-Kain
12h00 am Buffet Lunch
1h00 pm The Diagnosis and Managing Suicidality and Self-Harm - Dr. Lois Choi-Kain
2h30 pm Health break
2h45 pm Comorbidity, Multimodal Treatments and Challenge of implementation - Lois Dr. Choi-Kain
4h00 pm Closing remarks – Dr. Joel Paris
In the Background section, Dr. Choi-Kain will go over the status of GPM, including BPD’s prevalence in various settings and the lack of treatment availability for patients seeking care, the resource-intensiveness of other evidence-based treatments for BPD compared to GPM, certification requirements in different treatment modalities, the myths about treating BPD, and the emergence of GPM.
In the Interpersonal Hypersensitivity section, the theory behind GPM will be laid out, explaining how symptoms of the disorder are conceptualized as responses to feeling connected, threatened, alone and despairing. She will also explain the implications of this theory for treatment.
In Overall Principles, the stance of a GPM clinician will be explained. Clinicians are encouraged to be active instead of reactive, supportive and validating, and real and professional. They are meant to focus on life situations, such as getting a job, to expect change, and to keep their patients accountable. There is a large emphasis on psychoeducation, relational issues, pragmatism, nonspecific factors, and the medicalization of the disorder.
The Diagnosis section covers the BPD criteria, common issues in diagnosing BPD, benefits of diagnostic disclosure, and a wealth of scientifically informed psychoeducational material. The Getting Started section goes over GPM’s phases of therapy, therapeutic approach, alliance building, and goal setting.
The Managing Suicidality section provides basic guidelines on helping patients stay safe, including avoiding hospitalization when possible, developing safety plans, clarifying precipitants, and so on.
The Comorbidity section covers which disorders should be treated before BPD treatment can begin, and which should be secondary to BPD and the Multimodal Treatments section outlines the advantages and rules of split treatments, the benefits of group therapies, and the importance of family involvement and providing the family with guidelines on how to help their loved one. This section will also address the challenges of implementation.
