Transcription
Dialectical behavior therapy pays enormous attention to escape behavior. Suicidal behavior, for example, suicidal ideation functions for many as escape behavior.
We did a very interesting study where we looked at people with borderline personality disorder and people without a mental disorder. And in both of them, we had them imagine a scene where they were taking a medication for pain. And after they had taken it, discovered they had accidentally taken a medication that could kill them and that they were very likely to die.
So what happened was for the people who met criteria for borderline personality disorder, their anxiety started going down. Their physiological arousal went down. Their self-reports of anxiety went down. In fact, they got relaxed thinking they were dying. And for people who did not meet borderline personality disorder, needless to say, that did not happen.
Thinking that you can kill yourself is an escape from the life that you're living. It's a little bit like cutting. Cutting has the same function. You immediately feel better. The facts of the matter are people feel better. Cutting yourself is no different than taking heroin or taking a drug or drinking. You know, all those people who drink to feel better think that they're really different than the people who cut to feel better, but they're not different. They're just the same.