Intermittent-continuous eclectic therapy: a group approach for borderline personality disorder

Psychotherapies recommended for borderline personality disorder (BPD) can be difficult to implement in public hospitals. For example, in Chile, patients with BPD generally receive only pharmacotherapy, which is far from sufficient. This report describes a group psychotherapy approach called Intermittent-Continuous Eclectic Therapy (ICE) developed to treat patients with BPD. Results are presented from a small pilot study in which 15 outpatients with BPD between 15 and 40 years of age treated with ICE were followed for 1 year. In this small group of patients, improvements were seen in self-aggression and general symptoms. These preliminary findings suggests that ICE may be a useful option for treating BPD in real-world clinical settings and that more research in this area is warranted. A case report illustrating the implementation of ICE is also presented.