Trauma to Trust: Systemic Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)

This workshop is a dialogue-centered, case-rich space for experienced clinicians who want steadier footing with BPD without walking on eggshells. The work reframes “symptoms” as trauma-rooted protective adaptations and traces how abandonment alarms, splitting, projective identification, dissociation, anger/control, and help-rejecting patterns move through relationships.

Using a systemic lens across individual, couple, and family contexts, the training emphasizes warm, firm care that lowers threat, protects dignity, and restores everyday relational safety, grounded in culturally responsive practice and a clear awareness of power, identity, and context.

Participants engage in advanced conceptualization and practical applications drawn from EFT, Object Relations/Psychodynamic thinking, DBT adapted systemically, and Bowen-informed mapping, always in plain, compassionate language.

Expect a usable framework for disarming defenses, stabilizing alliance, inviting partners and families into the work (without collusion), and documenting care in non-pejorative, equity-aware ways.

Clinicians leave feeling less anxious and more confident and clear on what to watch, how to respond with warm firmness, and how to help people and their relationships move from trauma to trust.

Learning Objectives:

Participants will be able to:

• Formulate trauma-rooted, systemic case conceptualizations of BPD that honor protective adaptations and map their relational impact across individual, couple, and family work.
• Apply a systemic lens to disarm defenses with warm, firm care, lowering threat, stabilizing alliance, and growing everyday relational safety.
• Communicate the protective logic of behaviors with culturally attuned, non-pejorative language while setting dignifying boundaries and coach partners/families to respond effectively without walking on eggshells.

Who Should Watch

Experienced mental health professionals, therapists, social workers, and counselors who work with individuals, couples, or families where borderline personality dynamics, trauma-rooted adaptations, or high-intensity relational patterns are present, and who want a systemic, culturally responsive, non-pejorative framework for treatment.

Meet Dr. Lastenia Francis:

Lastenia Francis, PhD, LMFT, is a therapist, supervisor, and faculty member specializing in trauma, couples therapy, military families, and intersectional family dynamics. She developed the Bidirectional Intersectional Supervision (BIS) model and researches power in Black female breadwinner couples.