diagnosis: Borderline Personality Disorder

Description

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is associated with a range of complex clinical issues including severe instability in affect and relationships, para-suicidality and suicidality, and medical and psychological comorbidity. Patients typically require comprehensive treatment programs that include combinations of individual psychotherapy, group psychotherapy, medication management, crisis services, and/or case management (Cristea et al., 2017). For this disorder, we included studies on group treatments that are parts of comprehensive treatment programs for BPD (i.e., Dialectical Behavioral Therapy and Mentalization Based Therapy). In these programs the patient spends more time in group psychotherapy than other therapy components, but the patients participate in other forms of treatment simultaneously, such as individual psychotherapy and crisis management. The patient samples in these studies predominantly identified as female. Of the studies that reported on race/ethnicity, at least 60% of the patient samples identified as White. Additional work is needed to understand how these interventions might work with individuals identifying outside of these categories. Most group psychotherapies for BPD have three studies or less supporting their effectiveness. The exception was DBT, which had 18 studies and is the most researched group treatment approach for BPD. The promising therapies for BPD page includes additional therapies with promising emerging research.

Citations

Cristea, I., Gentili, C., Cotet C.D., Palomba D., Barbui C., & Cuijpers, P. (2017). Efficacy of psychotherapies for borderline personality disorder: A systematic review and meta-analysis. JAMA Psychiatry, 74(4), 319–328. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2016.4287

PSYCHOLOGICAL TREATMENTS