Personality Disorders:

Treating personality disorders can feel chaotic, overwhelming, and at times disorienting—leaving even experienced clinicians unsure where to begin or how to keep sessions from unraveling. Without a clear roadmap, therapy can start to mirror the client’s life: disorganized, emotionally charged, and difficult to navigate.

This course offers a structured, evidence-informed framework to help you move from confusion to clarity, giving you practical assessment and treatment strategies that restore direction, strengthen collaboration, and reduce therapeutic burnout.

Jeff Riggenbach, Ph.D., is a three-time best-selling author who trained personally with Marsha Linehan as well as Drs. Aaron and Judith Beck at The Beck Institute for Cognitive Therapy. Over the past 20 years, he has directed clinical programs for personality disorders and helped develop an integrated DBT/CBT/Schema Therapy model that has been used to treat more than 600 patients across psychiatric hospitals and outpatient settings. He has trained clinicians in all 50 U.S. states and nine countries, bringing deep expertise in personality pathology, maladaptive schemas, and high-conflict interpersonal dynamics directly into this training.

Through didactic teaching, real-life case examples, and case studies, Dr. Riggenbach translates complex diagnostic material into simple but effective engagement, management, and treatment strategies. He begins by clarifying the five clinical characteristics that differentiate personality disorders from other psychological conditions and pairs each with targeted assessment strategies. From there, he presents an integrated cognitive treatment model that brings together empirically supported strategies from DBT, CBT, and Schema Therapy into a cohesive clinical roadmap.

You will analyze the diagnostic criteria for all 10 DSM-5 personality disorders and explore key differential diagnosis considerations for each. The course highlights 18 maladaptive schemas and three maladaptive coping styles that perpetuate dysfunctional cycles, then demonstrates how to design case conceptualization maps that drive treatment planning, agenda setting, documentation, and collaboration. Clusters A and C disorders are addressed first, followed by Histrionic, Antisocial, Narcissistic, and Borderline Personality Disorders, with expanded focus on Borderline Personality Disorder due to its frequency in clinical settings and the level of therapist concern it often generates. Both individual and group therapy applications are incorporated into an integrated CBT/DBT/Schema Therapy treatment approach.

Key Takeaways:

• Diagnostic Clarity Across All 10 Disorders: Analyze DSM-5 criteria and confidently differentiate personality disorders from other psychological conditions using five defining characteristics and targeted assessment strategies.
• Schema-Driven Case Conceptualization: Identify 18 maladaptive schemas and three maladaptive coping styles, then translate them into collaborative case maps that guide treatment planning and documentation.
• Integrated Treatment Framework: Apply a cohesive CBT/DBT/Schema Therapy model—particularly for Borderline Personality Disorder—across both individual and group therapy settings.

Why this course?

• Practical Tools You Can Use Immediately: Rather than abstract theory, this training provides structured assessment strategies, conceptualization maps, and engagement techniques that bring order to complex cases.
• Developed by a Clinician-Trainer Who Helped Build the Model: Dr. Riggenbach’s training with Linehan and the Beck Institute directly informs an integrated approach that has been refined through treating over 600 patients across 15 years of clinical programming.
• Delivered by Telehealth Certification Institute: Guided by a mission to equip healthcare professionals with exceptional continuing education, TCI prioritizes clinically rigorous, ethically grounded, and application-focused training designed to improve real-world practice.

Learning Objectives:

• Analyze the diagnostic criteria and explain key differential diagnosis considerations for each of the 10 DSM 5 personality disorders.
• List the 5 characteristics that differentiate PDs from other psychological conditions.
• Describe the 18 maladaptive schemas driving target behaviors.
• Design case conceptualization maps that enhance collaboration and drive your treatment planning, agenda setting, and documentation.
• Apply an integrated CBT/DBT/Schema therapy model to treat clients with BPD, incorporating both individual and group therapy components.
• List 3 maladaptive coping styles and explain how they perpetuate dysfunctional cycles of behavior.

When sessions feel chaotic, and treatment feels stalled, what’s often missing is not effort but structure. This training offers a clear, integrated roadmap so you can approach personality pathology with confidence, precision, and renewed direction in your clinical work.