ABSTRACT
Globally there are several challenges to the effective assessment and treatment of Personality Disorders, the most significant of which has been a lack of trauma-informed approaches to care. Patients, family members, carers and clinicians all report multiple sources of trauma, stress, and burden surrounding this group of conditions. Patients state that there are no sensitive models of recovery that include recognition of the “person within the illness”. There is also a lack of understanding about the needs of individuals to grow, in both relationships and vocational outcomes that are personally meaningful, that goes beyond past history and symptoms (Ng et al., 2016). Carers feel excluded from participating in a patient’s recovery, or report significant burden and stress in supporting a person with the condition (Bailey and Grenyer, 2014). Finally, clinicians report high sources of stress and conflict within the helping relationship, particularly if the clinician’s workplace fails to provide collaborative and supportive models of care, including access to effective peer consultation (Bourke and Grenyer, 2013). All perspectives on the difficulties of providing and obtaining effective care for those with Personality Disorder need to be understood within a health care system that itself can sometimes present more challenges than solutions for this group.
