September 19th 2024
Is the complex posttraumatic stress disorder diagnosis being used to avoid the diagnosis of borderline personality disorder?
Since the inclusion of the borderline personality disorder (BPD) diagnosis in DSM, there have been multiple efforts to recast the disorder as part of an Axis I illness category. While the initial focus was on the schizophrenia spectrum, more recent authors have attempted to link BPD to mood disorders.
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STEPPS: A Viable Supplement to Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder
June 26th 2009Two randomized controlled trials have shown the Systems Training for Emotional Predictability and Problem Solving (STEPPS) program to be effective in reducing the intensity of core aspects of borderline personality disorder (BPD), Dr Donald Black and social worker Nancee Blum announced at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association held recently in San Francisco. Black summarized, “Data from several studies show that STEPPS reduced global severity as rated by clinicians and patients, borderline personality disorder symptoms, and depressive symptoms.”
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Personality Disorder: “Untreatable” Myth Is Challenged
July 2nd 2008Success with new approaches to the psychotherapeutic treatment of borderline personality disorder (BPD) and other DSM-IV personality disorders has been reported in several studies recently, raising hopes that an intractable set of illnesses may not be as hopeless as once thought.
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Adolescent Nonsuicidal Self-Injury: Evaluation and Treatment
June 2nd 2008In working with adolescents, mental health care professionals often draw on their own developmental experiences to help guide their patients; however, nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) is not likely to be a personal experience that psychiatrists can often draw on.
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Clinical Challenges in Co-occurring Borderline Personality and Substance Use Disorders
November 1st 2006Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a serious illness involving multiple symptoms and mal adaptive behaviors. According to DSM-IV, “the essential feature of borderline personality disorder is a pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self-image, and affects” (p. 650). This pervasive pattern of instability also applies to behaviors that are impulsive and potentially damaging, including excessive spending, sexual promiscuity, reckless driving, binge eating, and substance misuse.
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Borderline Personality Disorder: An Overview
August 25th 2006DSM-IV-TR emphasizes that patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) show a "instability of interpersonal relationships, self-image, and affects, and marked impulsivity beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts," and any five out of nine listed criteria must be present for the diagnosis to be made.
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Borderline Personality Disorder: Splitting Countertransference
August 25th 2006Splitting, archetypally imbedded in a patient's psychic structure, acts as a powerful unconscious force to protect against the ego's perception of dangerous anxiety and intense affects. Rather than providing real protection, splitting leads to destructive behavior and turmoil in patients' lives.
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With its focus on both behavior modification and mindfulness training, dialectical behavior therapy has proven quite effective in treating patients with borderline personality disorder. This article provides a primer on a modified version of this outpatient treatment for borderline patients with substance use disorders, a comorbid condition that may affect as many as two-thirds of patients with BPD.
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Psychodynamic Psychotherapy for Personality Disorders
July 1st 2004There has been a significant shift from the view that personality disorder is untreatable; we do have treatments that have at least some efficacy and one of these is psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Evidence from randomized trials has shown that it is effective in treating borderline personality disorder, and follow-up studies confirm that the gains are robust.
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Borderline Personality Disorder: An Overview
July 1st 2004Borderline personality disorder is a complex, disabling disorder. The chairperson for the American Psychiatric Association workgroup for the evidence-based practice guideline on its treatment gives an overview of this disorder's etiologies, neurobiology, longitudinal course and recommended treatments. Future directions for both treatments and research are also discussed.
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Assessing Suicide Risk in Patients With Borderline Personality Disorder
July 1st 2004Patients with borderline personality disorder are at a much higher risk for suicide attempts than patients with almost any other mental illness. Here, a case report and examples are presented to help clinicians assess, diagnose and treat patients with BPD who have attempted or are threatening suicide.
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Suicidal Self-Injurious Behavior in People With BPD
December 1st 2003Unlike other forms of self-injury, suicidal self-injury has special meaning, particularly in the context of borderline personality disorder. How is suicidal self-injury differentiated from non-suicidal self-injury in these patients, and how can their behavior be properly assessed and treated?
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Marsha Linehan: Dialectic Behavioral Therapy
July 2nd 1999For her work in establishing the Dialectic Behavioral Therapy (DBT) model for use with chronically suicidal individuals suffering from borderline personality disorder (BPD), Marsha M. Linehan, Ph.D., is this year's recipient of the annual research award given by the New York City-based American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP).
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Borderline Personality Disorder: Splitting Countertransference
November 1st 1998A popular slang definition of the verb to split is "to depart," or "to leave." In this context, to split describes the occasional wish of a psychiatrist who may be mired in the chaos created by the behavior of a patient diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. The primary definition of to split is "to divide sharply or cleanly."
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Atypical antipsychotic treatment for borderline personality disorder (BPD) and augmentation therapy with olanzapine (Zyprexa) or estrogen replacement therapy (ERT) for patients with mood disorders were among the research questions addressed at the American Psychiatric Association's annual meeting in Toronto. Following are some brief reports of selected presentations.
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