Another Psychotherapy for Borderline Personality Disorder?

Thanks to its demonstrated efficacy in symptom reduction, dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is the first-line treatment for patients with borderline personality disorder. However, trained practitioners are few. To examine whether another psychotherapeutic approach might be similarly effective, researchers in Australia randomized 166 adults with borderline personality disorder seen in a community mental health center (77% women; mean age, 27; white, 86%; employed, 37%; having high school or higher education, 69%) to 14 months of DBT or the conversational model of psychotherapy (CM). Patients had a minimum of three episodes of serious intentional self-injurious behavior in the year before recruitment.

Exclusions were disabling organic conditi…