British and Irish Group for the Study of Personality Disorder Twitter Chat

#bigspd17 @BIG_SPD

From 12.30pm Tuesday the 21^st of March until 1pm Thursday the 23^rd of March, the British and Irish group for the Study of Personality Disorder or BIGSPD is holding their annual conference in Inverness, Scotland.

BIGSPD was formed in 2000 to provide a forum for academic activity and professional networking in the field of personality disorder. In addition to the annual conference, BIGSPD are working towards developing a learning community which can support and connect individuals to share thinking, innovation and significant developments which will enhance efforts to reduce distress and improve lives www.bigspd.org.uk

During the conference we invite anyone with an interest to follow online and join in using the hashtag #bigspd17

We are holding a social media workshop, which will take place on Tuesday the 21^st of March 3-4.30pm.

We will be tweeting about using social media to develop and enhance research and practice for people with a personality disorder and for services who work with people with a personality disorder.

More and more people are using social media, it is important that we get involved in this valuable resource and consider its benefits as well as the challenges. Service users, carers, academics and healthcare professionals are using social media in a range of ways, from hashtags for online support like #bpdchat #traumanotpd, to facebook and blog pages like pd in the bin to online therapeutic communities. We need to build our online skills and awareness.

Being more engaged with social media would advance the area of personality disorder as a whole, it will build awareness, break down stigma and enable us to share new research findings and practice developments in personality disorder in accessible ways in order to maximise impact. The @WeMHNurses community have previous run a chat about personality disorder and social media, the full transcript is available here- http://www.wecommunities.org/tweet-chats/chat-details/2801

Questions

These are some of the questions we will be considering:

• What are the benefits of using social media to develop awareness about personality disorder?
• What might some of the challenges be in using social media to talk about personality disorder?
• How can we work with these challenges?
• Is social media useful as a supportive network? Why?
• How can it be used to showcase research, good practice and build networks?
• Are there any good social media forums people know about to discuss personality disorder? For service users, carers, staff, the public?
• How can we reduce stigma of personality disorder by using social media?
• What do we need to be aware of when using social media?

As with all our chats, everyone is welcome to join the conversation. Whether you are a Mental Health Nurse, other Health Care Professional, Academic, Service User, Carer or Citizen with an interest in the subject, we would like to hear your thoughts!

Emma Jones @jones23emma

Kirsten Barnicot @kbarnicot

Fenella Lemonsky @organiclemon 

Keir Harding @keirwales

Gary Lamph @gazlamph

Additional information

Personality disorder

We are mindful that the term personality disorder itself can cause stigma and that it’s usefulness for service users has been questioned because of this stigma (DH, 2014). We will refer to the term personality disorder for clarity, a general definition of personality disorder is given below for information, more information can be found on the websites under resources/ info.

People with a personality disorder may have experienced trauma in their lives, have difficulties in developing relationships, they may struggle with their emotions, feel rejected or hurt and at times may avoid people. They may feel distressed in different aspects of their life, for example, at work or with family or friends and can have difficulties coping with this distress (BPS, 2006; DH, 2014).

‘We all have personalities, and we all have aspects of our personalities that are troublesome at times. People with personality disorder are not fundamentally different from anyone else, but might, at times, need extra help.’ (DH, 2014).

Resources/Info

Many more resources will be tweeted during the conference.

If you need support http://www.emergenceplus.org.uk/how-to-get-help/102-finding-support-in-your-area.html

Emergence was a fantastic service user led organisation, previously known as Borderline UK. Emergence very sadly closed recently. However their website continues to include useful information http://www.emergenceplus.org.uk/

Personality disorder website with further information aboutservices http://personalitydisorder.org.uk/

British Psychological Society (2006) Understanding personality disorder http://www.bps.org.uk/content/understanding-personality-disorder-report-british-psychological-society

Department of Health (2014) Meeting the challenge, making adifference: Working effectively to support people with personality disorder in the community http://www.emergenceplus.org.uk/news-from-emergence/507-meeting-the-challenge-making-a-difference-a-new-personality-disorder-practitioner-guide.html

NICE quality standards https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/qs88

National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (2009) Antisocial Personality Disorder https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg77

National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (2009) Borderline Personality Disorder https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg78

National Institute for Mental Health in England and Dept of Health (2003) Personality Disorder: No longer a diagnosis of exclusion http://personalitydisorder.org.uk/resources-and-documents/

Personality Disorders in a Social World: What Social Media Means for Personality Disorders https://www.borderlinepersonalitytreatment.com/personality-disorders-social-media.html

The Mind website has more information about personality disorder, including information leaflets http://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/personality-disorders/