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Psychotherapy for Borderline Personality Disorder: Progress and Remaining Challenges

  • Personality Disorders (C Schmahl, Section Editor)
  • Published:
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Abstract

Purpose

The main purpose of this review was to critically evaluate the literature on psychotherapies for borderline personality disorder (BPD) published over the past 5 years to identify the progress with remaining challenges and to determine priority areas for future research.

Method

A systematic review of the literature over the last 5 years was undertaken.

Results

The review yielded 184 relevant abstracts, and after applying inclusion criteria, 16 articles were fully reviewed based on the articles’ implications for future research and/or clinical practice.

Conclusion

Our review indicated that patients with various severities benefited from psychotherapy; more intensive therapies were not significantly superior to less intensive therapies; enhancing emotion regulation processes and fostering more coherent self-identity were important mechanisms of change; therapies had been extended to patients with BPD and posttraumatic stress disorder; and more research was needed to be directed at functional outcomes.

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Papers of particular interest, published recently, have been highlighted as: • Of importance •• Of major importance

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Lawson Health Research Institute, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, London, Canada

    Paul S. Links, Ravi Shah & Rahel Eynan

  2. The University of Western Ontario, London, Canada

    Paul S. Links, Ravi Shah & Rahel Eynan

  3. London Health Sciences Centre, Department of Psychiatry, Victoria Hospital—North Tower, Rm B8-132, 800 Commissioners Road East, London, N6A 5W9, ON, Canada

    Paul S. Links, Ravi Shah & Rahel Eynan

  4. St. Joseph’s Health Care London, London, Canada

    Paul S. Links, Ravi Shah & Rahel Eynan

Authors
  1. Paul S. Links
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  2. Ravi Shah
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  3. Rahel Eynan
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Correspondence to Paul S. Links.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Personality Disorders

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Links, P.S., Shah, R. & Eynan, R. Psychotherapy for Borderline Personality Disorder: Progress and Remaining Challenges. Curr Psychiatry Rep 19, 16 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11920-017-0766-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11920-017-0766-x

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