Creative coping: a cognitive-behavioral group for borderline personality disorder

Patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) pose major therapeutic challenges to mental health professionals. Effective and practical treatment of the patient with BPD is needed in short-term inpatient settings, and psychiatric nurses are in a unique position to implement innovative treatment strategies for the borderline patient. The Creative Coping Group is a practice model designed by psychiatric nurses for patients with BPD, using a cognitive-behavioral framework. It is a group therapy intervention based on Linehan's Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) that addresses the ineffective coping of patients with BPD that results in chronic suicidal behavior. Linehan's framework focuses on deficits in emotional control, interpersonal effectiveness, and distress tolerance. The objective of the group sessions is to foster insight and awareness into symptoms, feelings, and behaviors through psychoeducation, group exercises, discussion, and homework assignments.