Management of borderline personality disorder: a review of psychotherapeutic approaches.

There are currently three major psychotherapeutic approaches to the management of borderline personality disorder (BPD): the psychodynamic, the cognitive-behavioral, and the supportive. There are special varieties within each: e.g., transference-focused psychotherapy (psychodynamic) or dialectic behavioral therapy (cognitive-behavioral). Though differing in basic conceptions and in methodology, all approaches aim at the amelioration of both the symptom-aspects that dominate the clinical picture at the outset, and the personality difficulties that remain apparent after the symptoms have been alleviated. The term "management" implies a focus on the more serious aspects of the borderline picture. These can be pictured hierarchically as to their level of seriousness, and there is universal agreement about the nature of this hierarchy. Therapists must pay attention first to suicidal and self-mutilative behaviors. Next, one deals with any threats to interrupt therapy prematurely. Third in order of seriousness: non-suicidal symptoms such as (mild to moderate) depression, substance abuse, panic and other anxiety manifestations, or dissociation. Psychopharmacological treatment will often be used adjunctively to help control any target symptoms, which usually fall into such categories as cognitive-perceptual, affect dysregulation, or impulsive/ behavioral dyscontrol. Therapists must then be alert to any signs of withholding, dishonesty, or antisocial tendencies, since these have an adverse effect on prognosis. When all these disruptive influences are (to the extent possible) dealt with, therapists will next take up milder symptoms such as social anxiety or lability of mood. Throughout this initial process, the personality-disorder attributes of BPD will become more apparent, and will usually emerge with greater clarity, once the serious symptoms have been dealt with. The management issues will gradually be supplanted with the overlapping and enduring personality issues: inappropriate anger, abrasiveness, manipulativeness, demandingness, jealousy, "all-or-none" thinking and the extreme attitudes (idealization/devaluation) that accompany such thinking, masochistic traits, etc. Under ideal circumstances, the borderline patient will have "graduated" toward a higher level of function, where (acute) management issues have been adequately dealt with or have receded into the background. Psychotherapy, individual and group, becomes the dominant intervention, with such goals as psychic integration, skills training, and the fostering of long-range ambitions relating to friendships, partner choice, and work.