Borderline Personality Disorder

Paper Summary:

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is lifelong, notoriously hard to treat, and includes aspects that have long puzzled researchers. Yet despite this, BPD is a relatively common disorder found in 11% of all psychiatric outpatients and 19% of all psychiatric inpatients. This paper discusses the characteristics of the disorder and then presents the Beck-Young cognitive models and Kernberg's psychodynamic model, of understanding and treating BPD for comparison. In the final part, the author presents his view as to which framework he would prefer to use and why.

From the Paper:

"The treatment models proposed by the two frameworks first appear to be very different from one another. Psychoanalysis proposes that we are protected from our unconscious thoughts by a variety of defence mechanisms to disguise any unconscious material that might leak into our consciousness. Therefore in therapy, psychoanalysis attempts to expose the unconscious processes and assumes that the ego, relieved of its burden of trying to seal off the unconscious material, will then provide realistic corrections. In cognitive therapy, the distorted/illogical thought processes are exposed to the patient through reality testing and thus relies to the patient to use her rationality to correct her irrationality (Beck, 1985). Because psychoanalysis for BPD probes into the patient's unconscious and is primarily a 'transference' based technique that does not focus on specific symptoms, it can typically take up to 7 years to complete. On the other hand cognitive therapy for BPD targets symptoms directly and produces results on a much shorter time scale - typically 1-2 years (Beck et al., 1990). "

Sample of Sources Used:

• Beck, A.T. (1985). Cognitive Therapy, Behaviour Therapy, Psychoanalysis, and Pharmacotherapy: A Cognitive Continuum. In Mahoney, M.J., Freeman, A. (Eds) (1985). Cognition and Psychotherapy. New York, N.Y: Plenum Press.
• Beck, A.T., Freeman, A. (1990). Cognitive Therapy of Personality Disorders. New York, N.Y: The Guilford Press.
• Kernberg, O.F. (1977). The Structural Diagnosis of Borderline Personality Organisation. In Hartocollis, P. (Eds) (1986). Borderline Personality Disorders: The Concept, the Syndrome, the Patient. Madison, Connecticut: International Universities Press, Inc.
• Lerner, P. (1992). The Borderline Concept: Crossroads of Theory and Research. In Barron, J.W., Eagle, M.N., Wolitzky, D.L. (Eds) (1992). Interface of Psychoanalysis and Psychology. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
• Linehan, M.M. (1993). Cognitive-Behavioural Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder. New York, N.Y: The Guilford Press.

More papers on Borderline Personality Disorder:

• Research Paper # 7277 : "The Effect of Dialectical Behavior Therapy on the Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder"
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• Analytical Essay # 4946 : "Borderline Personality Disorder"
• Research Paper # 105004 : "Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)"

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