Dear Friends:

TARA4BPD suggests the following books to read so that you can broaden your understanding of BPD. Try to read as many as possible. These books are not specifically about BPD, however they discuss various aspects of social behavior, emotions, and how the brain works. With this understanding, you will be able to develop compassion for your loved ones as you realize the origin and meaning of the difficult behaviors.

David Brooks:
The Social Animal

Brooks turns to the building blocks of humans flourishing in a multilayered, profoundly illuminating work grounded in everyday life. This is the story of how success happens, told through the lives of one composite American couple, Harold and Erica.

Robert Sapolsky:
Behave- The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst

Why do we do the things we do? He starts by looking at the factors that bear on a person's reaction in the precise moment a behavior occurs, and then hops back in time from there, in stages, ultimately ending up at the deep history of our species and its evolutionary legacy.

Daniel Goleman:
Social Intelligence

An exploration of an emerging new science with startling implications for our interpersonal world. Is there a way to raise our children to be happy, have of a nourishing marriage, for business leaders and teachers to inspire the best in those they teach? How can groups divided by prejudice and hatred come to live together in peace?

Robert M. Sapolsky:
Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers

Sapolsky explains how prolonged stress causes or intensifies a range of physical and mental afflictions, including depression, ulcers, colitis, heart disease, and more. It also provides essential guidance to controlling our stress responses.

Daniel Goleman:
Destructive Emotions-
How Can We Overcome Them?

Why do seemingly rational, intelligent people commit acts of cruelty and violence? What are the root causes of destructive behavior? How can we control the emotions that drive these impulses? Can we learn to live at peace with ourselves and others? Buddhist philosophy tells us that all personal unhappiness and interpersonal conflict lie in the “three poisons”: craving, anger, and delusion

Daniel Goleman:
Emotional Intelligence

Everyone knows that high IQ is no guarantee of success, happiness, or virtue, but until Emotional Intelligence, we could only guess why. Daniel Goleman’s brilliant report from the frontiers of psychology and neuroscience offers startling new insight into our “two minds”—the rational and the emotional—and how they together shape our destiny.

Daniel Goleman:
The Emotional Brain

What happens in our brains to make us feel fear, love, hate, anger, joy? Do we control our emotions, or do they control us? Do animals have emotions? How can traumatic experiences in early childhood influence adult behavior? LeDoux investigates the origins of human emotions and explains that many exist as part of complex neural systems that evolved to enable us to survive.

Paul Ekman Ph.D.:
Emotions Revealed, Recognizing Faces and Feelings to Improve Communication and Emotional Life

Research based practical, mind-opening, and life-changing guide to reading the emotions of those around us. How does our body signal to others whether we are slightly sad or anguished, peeved or enraged? Can we learn to distinguish between a polite smile and the genuine thing? Can we ever truly control our emotions?

David D. Burns:
The Feeling Good Handbook

Reveals techniques and features exercises that can help you cope with problems and learn how to make life a happier, more exhilarating experience. This book can help you: free yourself from fears, phobias and panic attacks; overcome self-defeating attitudes; discover the five secrets of intimate communication; and, put an end to marital conflict.

Daniel Goleman:
Healing Emotions: Conversations with the Dalai Lama on Mindfulness, Emotions, and Health

Can the mind heal the body? The Buddhist tradition says yes. This is a record of an series of encounters between the Dalai Lama and prominent Western psychologists, physicians, and meditation teachers that sheds new light on the mind-body connection: compassion as medicine; the nature of consciousness; self-esteem; and the meeting points of mind, body, and spirit.

Brene Brown:
I Thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn’t)

The quest for perfection is exhausting and unrelenting. There is a constant barrage of social expectations that teach us that being imperfect is synonymous with being inadequate. So, we learn to hide our struggles and protect ourselves from shame, judgment, criticism and blame by seeking safety in pretending and perfection.

Brene Brown:
Rising Strong

Walking into our stories of hurt can feel dangerous. But the process of regaining our footing in the midst of struggle is where our courage is tested, and our values are forged. Our stories of struggle can be big ones. Rising strong after a fall is how we cultivate wholeheartedness. It’s the process, that teaches us the most about who we are.

Brené Brown:
Daring Greatly

Every day we experience the uncertainty, risks, and emotional exposure that define what it means to be vulnerable or to dare greatly. Based on twelve years of pioneering research, Brené Brown, dispels the cultural myth that vulnerability is weakness and argues that it is, in truth, our most accurate measure of courage.

William Styron:
Darkness Visible

William Styron became numbed by disaffection, apathy, and despair, unable to speak or walk while caught in the grip of advanced depression. His struggle with the disease culminated in a wave of obsession that nearly drove him to suicide, leading him to seek hospitalization before the dark tide engulfed him. This book tells the story of Styron’s recovery, laying bare the harrowing realities of clinical depression.

Carol Kranowitz:
The Out-of-Sync Child

Over-responsivity--or under-responsivity--to touch or movement? Cravings for sensation? Poor sensory discrimination? Unusually high or low activity level? This book offers comprehensive, clear information for parents and professionals--and a drug-free treatment approach for children.

Gilbery M. Foley:
Mental Health in Early Intervention

An ideal textbook and professional development resource for early intervention practitioners—and a useful source of insight for mental health professionals—this comprehensive book fully prepares readers to integrate two interdependent fields and improve practices in both.

Alice Miller:
The Drama of the Gifted Child

Why are many of the most successful people plagued by feelings of emptiness and alienation? This wise and profound book has provided millions of readers with an answer--and has helped them to apply it to their own lives.

Robert M. Sapolsky:
Biology and Human Behavior: The Neurological Origins of Individuality

When are we responsible for our own actions, and when are we in the grip of biological forces beyond our control? This question is the scientific province of behavioral biology, a field that explores interactions among the brain, mind, body, and environment that have a surprising influence on how we behave. t is the study of how our brains make us the individuals that we are.

Robert Sapolsky:
Behave-The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst

Why do we do the things we do? He starts by looking at the factors that bear on a person’s reaction in the precise moment a behavior occurs, and then hops back in time from there, in stages, ultimately ending up at the deep history of our species and its evolutionary legacy.

Robert Wright:
Why Buddhism is True

The reason we suffer—and the reason we make other people suffer—is that we don’t see the world clearly. At the heart of Buddhist meditative practice is a radical promise: We can learn to see the world, including ourselves, more clearly and so gain a deep and morally valid happiness. Robert Wright shows how taking this promise seriously can change your life—how it can loosen the grip of anxiety, regret, and hatred, and how it can deepen your appreciation of beauty and of other people.

Emeran Mayer:
The Mind-Gut Connection

We have all experienced the connection between our mind and our gut—the decision we made because it “felt right”; the butterflies in our stomach before a big meeting; the anxious stomach rumbling we get when we’re stressed out. Dr. Emeran Mayer offers a revolutionary and provocative look at this developing science, teaching us how to harness the power of the mind-gut connection to take charge of our health and listen to the innate wisdom of our bodies.

Daniel J. Siegel:
Pocket Guide to Interpersonal Neurobiology

This book is designed to aid in your personal and professional application of the interpersonal neurobiology approach to developing a healthy mind, an integrated brain, and empathic relationships. It is also designed to assist you in seeing the intricate foundations of interpersonal neurobiology as you read other books in the Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology.

Christian Schmahl, K. Luan Phan, Robert O. Friedel, & Larry J. Siewer:
Neurobiology of Personality Disorders

The first book to focus specifically on the neurobiology of disturbed personality. It provides a thorough outline of the principles of neural science that mediate personality and describe what is currently known about how these biological processes are impaired in individuals with personality disorders.

Antonio Damasio:
Descartes’ Error

Damasio takes the reader on a journey of scientific discovery through a series of case studies, demonstrating what many of us have long suspected: emotions are not a luxury, they are essential to rational thinking and to normal social behavior.

Eric R. Kandel: In Search of Memory

Kandel intertwines the intellectual history of the powerful new science of the mind―a combination of cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and molecular biology―with his own personal quest to understand memory.

Joseph LeDoux: The Emotional Brain: the Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life

What happens in our brains to make us feel fear, love, hate, anger, joy? Do we control our emotions, or do they control us? Do animals have emotions? How can traumatic experiences in early childhood influence adult behavior, even though we have no conscious memory of them? In The Emotional Brain, Joseph LeDoux investigates the origins of human emotions and explains that many exist as part of complex neural systems that evolved to enable us to survive. One of the principal researchers profiled in Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence, LeDoux is a leading authority in the field of neural science. In this provocative book, he explores the brain mechanisms underlying our emotions -- mechanisms that are only now being revealed.

Marsha M. Linehan:
DBT Skills Training Manual

This is an essential resource for clients learning dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) skills, and those who treat them. Originally developed to treat borderline personality disorder, DBT has been demonstrated effective in treatment of a wide range of psychological and emotional problems.

Paul Gilbert:
Compassion Focused Therapy

This book explains how Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) – a process of developing compassion for the self and others to increase well-being and aid recovery – varies from other forms of Cognitive Behavior Therapy. A valuable source for students and professionals in training as well as practicing therapists who want to learn more about the distinctive features of CFT.

Anthony Bateman, Peter Fonagy:
Mentalization-Based Treatment for Borderline Personality Disorder

This book covers the aims and structure of treatment, outlines how patients are introduced to the mentalizing model so that their personality disorder makes sense to them, explains why certain interventions are recommended and others are discouraged, and systematically describes the process of treatment in both group and individual therapy to support more stable mentalizing.

John G. Gunderson: Borderline Personality Disorder: A Clinical Guide

Covering the range of clinical presentations, treatments, and levels of care, Borderline Personality Disorder: A Clinical Guide, Second Edition, provides a comprehensive guide to the diagnosis and treatment of borderline personality disorder (BPD). The second edition includes new research about BPD s relationship to other disorders and up-to-date descriptions of empirically validated treatments, including cognitive-behavioral and psychodynamic approaches. Compelling new research also indicates a much better prognosis for BPD than previously known.

Barbara Stanley and Antonia S. New: Primer on Borderline Personality Disorder.

Family Chapter by Valerie Porr

The aim of this primer on borderline personality disorder is to fill this void and provide an accessible, easy-to-use , clinically-oriented, evidenced-based guide for early stage clinicians. We present the most up to data about borderline personality disorder by leading experts in the field in a format accessible to trainees and professionals working with individuals with borderline personality disorder and their family members. The volume is comprehensive and covers the etiology of BPD, its clinical presentation and co-morbid disorders, genetics and neurobiology of BPD, effective treatment of BPD, the role of advocacy and special subpopulations (e.g.forensic)in the clinical management of BPD.

The Guilford Press: Dialectical Behavior Therapy in Clinical Practice: Applications across Disorders and Settings

CCrrent advances in (DBT) and applications for a range of complex problems. Leading experts share lessons learned from hands-on experience and research, vital insights on ways to implement this evidence-based approach in real-world clinical practice. A concise overview of DBT, t how the therapy is used in outpatient, inpatient, forensic, and community contexts, with adults, adolescents, and couples and families. Chapters on exemplary programs illustrate applications for treating depression, substance dependence, eating disorders, psychosis, and suicidal and assaultive behaviors.

Anthony Bateman, Peter Fonagy:
Psychotherapy for Borderline Personality Disorder

Bateman and Fonagy have developed a psychoanalytically oriented treatment for BPD known as mentalization treatment. With randomized controlled trials having shown this method to be effective, this book presents the first account of this treatment for BPD.

Alex L. Miller:
Dialectical Behavior Therapy with Suicidal Adolescents

Filling a tremendous need, this highly practical book adapts the proven techniques of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) to treatment of multiproblem adolescents at highest risk for suicidal behavior and self-injury. The authors are master clinicians who take the reader step by step through understanding and assessing severe emotional dysregulation in teens and implementing individual, family, and group-based interventions. Insightful guidance on everything from orientation to termination is enlivened by case illustrations and sample dialogues. Appendices feature 30 mindfulness exercises as well as lecture notes and 12 reproducible handouts for "Walking the Middle Path," a DBT skills training module for adolescents and their families.

Eric Kandel:
The Age of Insight

Kandel takes us to Vienna 1900, where leaders in science, medicine, and art began a revolution that changed forever how we think about the human mind—our conscious and unconscious thoughts and emotions—and how mind and brain relate to art.