Borderline Personality Disorder Treatment

Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder usually consists of:

Several kinds of psychological treatment can be tried when resources are available, though none has been proved to have a substantial and reliable effect. The following points should be considered.

Dynamic psychotherapy: People with borderline personality disorder do not respond well to the usual forms of dynamic psychotherapy and unskilled treatment may result in reduced emotional control and increased impulsiveness. Kernberg (1984) described an alternative approach for these patients, which is likely to have these adverse effects but still deals with what is thought to be the core psychopathology. This approach called expressive psychotherapy, is claimed to give good results, but to date no randomized controlled trials have been reported.

Group psychotherapy: This treatment has the advantage that transference relationships are spread over the group instead of focused on the therapist and that the group's comments on acting out behaviour may be accepted more readily than those of the therapist. The therapist needs considerable skill if the borderline patient is to be helped without disrupting the treatment of the other group members. It is seldom practicable to treat more than one borderline patient in a group.

Treatments for BPD have improved in recent years. Group and individual psychotherapy are at least partially effective for many patients. The major problems are finding a qualified therapist and getting the BP into therapy. Within the past 15 years, a new psychosocial treatment termed dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) was developed specifically to treat BPD, and this technique has looked promising in treatment studies.

Pharmacological treatments are often prescribed based on specific target symptoms shown by the individual patient.

Medications for Borderline Personality Disorder

Medication, which are often successfully used to reduce depression, dampen emotional ups and downs, and put the brakes on excessive impulsivity. Antidepressant drugs and mood stabilizers may be helpful for depressed and/or labile mood. Antipsychotic drugs may also be used when there are distortions in thinking.

Anxiolytic medication should be avoided because of its potential for disinhibition and dependence. Small doses of an antipsychotic drug may reduce aggressive begaviour in the short term. A selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor (SSRI) can be tried since these drugs appear to reduce impulsive behaviour in some patients, though at the time of writing the evidence for this effect is not convincing.

Borderline Personality Disorder Symptom - A person with BPD may experience intense bouts of anger, depression, and anxiety that may last only hours, or at most a day.

What are the Borderline Personality Disorder Cause?

Borderline Personality Disorder BPD - is a serious mental illness characterized by pervasive instability in moods, interpersonal relationships, self-image, and behavior.

Borderline Personality Disorder Medication and Treatment - Pharmacological treatments are often prescribed based on specific target symptoms shown by the individual patient.

Test for Borderline Personality Disorder - Data from the first prospective, longitudinal study of BPD, which began in the early 1990s, is expected to reveal how treatment affects the course of the illness.