Meehl Foundation Residential DBT Program Creates New Lives

HOUSTON - Nov. 11, 2013 - PRLog -- Seven miles from Lake Jackson Texas is the only residential treatment for Borderline Personality Disorder that uses an Intensively Trained Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) Team.   This program is the only DBT program that is also an “Amen Brain Healthy treatment Program” in the United States.

Borderline Personality Disorder is a maladaptive coping style that has up to an 87% success treatment rate using Dialectical Behavioral Therapy.  Basically, DBT maintains that some people, due to genetic predisposition and environment, react abnormally to emotional stimulation.  Their level of arousal goes up much more quickly, peaks at a higher level, and takes more time to return to normal.  Their “normal” may be more depressed or agitated than experienced by most people. This explains why some people have crisis-strewn lives and extreme emotional lability (emotions that shift rapidly).  They don’t have any skills for coping with these sudden, intense surges of emotion.  DBT is a method for teaching skills that will help in this task; Decreasing or eliminating life-threatening behaviors (suicide attempts, suicidal thinking, self-injury, cutting, burning, stranger danger sex, etc) Decreasing or eliminating therapy-interfering behaviors (missing sessions, not doing homework, behaving in a way that burns others out) Reducing or eliminating hospitalization as a way of handling crisis.  Decreasing behaviors that interfere with the quality of life (eating disorders, not going to work or school, addiction, chronic unemployment.) Increasing behaviors that will enable the person to have a life worth living.  Increasing behavioral skills that help to build relationships manage emotions and deal effectively with various life problems.  Many people with Borderline Personality Disorder have an underlying Mood Disorder such as Bipolar Disorder, Depression or Anxiety.  Many have substance abuse problems because they have gone untreated, undertreated or mis-treated for years. Having a SPECT image of the brain from the Amen Clinic is one of the treatment modalities of the Meehl Foundation program.  Getting a picture of the brain clearly shows the areas of the brain that need treatment. Correct medication with the correct therapy is the gold standard for radical improvement of people’s lives.

The Meehl Foundations’ minimum 90 day program changes lives. People learn to think differently and more effectively. They learn about correct sleeping, nutrition, exercise, medication and correct effective thinking. They learn to get out of what is called “emotional mind” and get into “wise mind” learning critical thinking by mindfulness, radical acceptance and meditation.

Debra Meehl speaks at national conferences around the U.S. on the topic “Bipolar Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder with Substance Abuse.” She teaches, works, and lives the Dialectical Behavioral (http://www.meehlfoundation.org/dialectical-behavioral-the...) principles, while operating The Meehl Foundation (http://www.meehlfoundation.org/).  The Meehl House is the only residential treatment for Borderline Personality Disorder that is an “Amen Brain Healthy Program”. Clients benefit from an individual plan for a holistic balanced approach to mental wellness with psychological testing and assessment, medication management, hypnosis, acupuncture, hair follicle testing for vitamins and minerals, hormone balancing, and nutritional counseling.  Most important, clients learn how to take back and create lives that are fulfilling and rewarding.