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Psychotherapy with borderline patients: I. A comparison between treated and untreated cohorts
R Meares1, J Stevenson, A Comerford
1Department of Psychological Medicine, University of Sydney, Westmead Hospital, New South Wales, Australia. acomerfo@mail.usyd.edu.au
Objective:
The aim of this study is to compare the clinical outcome of patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) who had received outpatient psychotherapy for 1 year with BPD patients who received no formal psychotherapy for the same period.
Method:
Thirty patients with BPD were treated by trainee psychotherapists working according to clearly described therapeutic principles. They received intensive audiotaped supervision. Patients were seen twice weekly for 1 year. They were compared with 30 patients subsequently referred to the clinic, for whom no therapist was available and who remained on a waiting list for 1 year, receiving their usual treatment. The outcome measure was a score derived from DSM criteria. It was taken at the beginning and end of the year's treatment, in the former case, and after at least 1 year on the waiting list in the latter. (The average waiting period was 17.1 months.)
Results And Conclusions:
Patients who received psychotherapy were significantly improved in terms of the DSM score. Thirty percent of treated patients no longer fulfilled DSM-III criteria for BPD. The untreated patients were unchanged.