When people start borderline therapy personality disorder (BPD), the first conversation is often about what is wrong. Therapists on emotional outbursts, impulsive decisions, self harmunstable relationships and any other symptoms that prompted their client to seek treatment. These questions are important because they help us understand a person’s problems and determine how to keep them safe.
But when this assessment is completed, where should it be? therapy Start?
Many evidence-based treatments are inherently symptom-reducing. It makes sense. After all, that’s why people get treatment.
However, as a researcher and clinician specializing in BPD, I have learned to frame therapy by asking, “Who do you want to be?” A more powerful question than “Who do you want to stop being?”
Another starting point
BPD Compass (2026) is evidence-based treatment for BPD that my colleagues and I have developed to tailor treatment to underlying personality processes rather than assuming that everyone needs the same intervention.
In clinical trials, participants showed significant improvements Symptoms of BPD at the same time symptoms like depression and anxietyand personality traits keep your troubles.
One of the features that often surprises clinicians is that we begin treatment with values understanding before any coping skills are introduced. It’s not that values are more important than symptom reduction. In contrast, values aim to reduce symptoms. In other words, it motivates you to imagine the person you want to be.
Defining your values is the process of defining the kind of person you want to be and the life you want to create. Instead of focusing on what you want to stop feeling or doing, it asks what you want to move toward. In therapy, this often means exploring the qualities you want to bring to different areas of your life.
“Who do you want to be?” is a big question. So we break it down into important areas of life. For example, what kind of partner do you want to be? What qualities do you hope your friends would use to describe you? What makes work feel meaningful? How do you see? spiritualityIs community service or charity coming into your life? There are no right or wrong answers. The goal is not to define what you value, but to clarify what is truly important to you.
A more useful way to think about behavior
Starting with values also changes how we evaluate behavior in therapy. I don’t believe it is the therapist’s job to determine whether behavior is inherently good or bad. Behaviors almost always make sense in context, especially when they are developed as ways to cope with overwhelming emotions or difficult life experiences.
Instead of asking clients to stop challenging my behavior, we ask, “Is this behavior bringing you closer or further away from the person you want to be?”
Take something as simple as not answering the phone. For one person, letting a call go to voicemail can be an act of self-denial that distracts them from the value of maintaining a close relationship. For someone else, turning off their phone during family dinner may reflect their value on being fully present with their children. The behavior looks the same, but its function and alignment with that person’s values are different.
Values can help build a strong sense of identity
One of the defining characteristics of BPD is personality disturbance. Many people describe feeling unsure of who they are or notice that their sense of self changes dramatically depending on the situation, the emotions they are experiencing, or the people around them.
Values are more stable. Unlike emotions, values don’t have to change from one day to the next.
You may not always be confident, but you can always appreciate courage. You may not always feel confident, but you can still appreciate proximity. You can’t always feel patient, but you can appreciate being a parent who responds rather than reactively.
Most people, with BPD or not, never sit down and define their values. This process is really powerful; most of my clients describe it as challenging, surprising and enlightening. Moreover, repeatedly practicing these values over time helps people develop a greater sense of self.
The prices are worth the change
Changing long-standing personality patterns is hard work. Speaking up feels uncomfortable after years of avoiding conflict. Trusting someone after repeated disappointments is dangerous. Resisting impulsive urges can feel almost impossible right now.
If the goal is simply to stop doing something, it’s easy to miss it motivation when change becomes difficult.
Values are reasons to hold. They remind us personality change is not about becoming someone with “better” qualities. It’s about becoming the person we want to be. When healing begins with this vision, every difficult step has purpose and every new skill becomes a tool to build your life.
