Personality disorders are often described in terms of observable behavior, rage, manipulation, withdrawal, impulsivity, but these surface behaviors are driven by powerful emotional themes beneath the surface. This first session explores the core content that fuels personality pathology, helping clinicians move beyond symptom management to deeper, more targeted interventions.

In this session, we’ll focus on identifying and working with emotional drivers such as shame, fear of abandonment, chronic feelings of inadequacy, and internalized beliefs of unworthiness. These emotional experiences are often rooted in early relational trauma and can remain unspoken or poorly articulated by clients. When left unexamined, they influence behavior in rigid, repetitive, and often self-defeating ways.

This session will present a framework for understanding how these emotional cores give rise to maladaptive patterns like emotional lability, self-sabotage, perfectionism, and interpersonal instability. Through clinical examples and case illustrations, attendees will learn how to recognize signs of core emotional distress, even when masked by defensiveness or grandiosity, and how to begin gently naming and addressing these themes in session.

The session will also introduce strategies to help clients begin identifying, tolerating, and integrating these painful emotional states into a more coherent narrative of self. By targeting the emotional core, clinicians can support more meaningful, lasting change and avoid reinforcing surface-level coping strategies that often fail in the long run. This foundational session sets the tone for the rest of the series, grounding treatment in compassion, curiosity, and a deep respect for the internal world of the client.