Patients coping with the chaos and misery of Borderline Personality Disorder now have reason for strong confidence in making major life changes through a new treatment, Schema Therapy. For the first time, three major outcome studies have shown that many patients with Borderline Personality Disorder can achieve full recovery across the complete range of symptoms. In one study Schema Therapy was shown to be more than twice as effective in bringing about full recovery as a widely-practiced traditional treatment (Transference Focused Psychotherapy). Schema Therapy was also found to be more cost-effective and to have a much lower dropout rate. In a second study group schema therapy led to even stronger outcomes than those in the previous investigation over a briefer period with a 0% drop out rate and a recovery rate of 94% over an 8 month period. A third study, now in press, shows that individual Schema Therapy can be successfully implemented in regular mental health care settings with no loss of effectiveness.

While other specialized treatments for BPD have demonstrated empirical support, all but Schema Therapy have serious limitations in their impact on patients' functioning and quality of life and only Schema Therapy has demonstrated cost effectiveness. Schema Therapy is also associated with higher levels of patient and therapist satisfaction with the treatment.

The first of these large scale studies was reported in the Archives of General Psychiatry, published by the American Medical Association, the second published in the Journal of Behavioral Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry and the third will soon be appearing in Behavior Research and Therapy. Schema Therapy is an integrative approach that expands on the principles of cognitive-behavioral therapy.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, Borderline Personality Disorder is found in about 1 to 2.5 percent of the general population although a recent large-scale epidemiological study reported a much higher estimate of 5.9%. This latter study indicates that BPD is potentially five to six times as prevalent as either schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.

Patients with the disorder live life on the edge: they're typically impulsive, unstable, exquisitely sensitive to rejection, have regular outbursts of anger, and live daily with extreme emotional pain. They often self-mutilate and make repeated suicide attempts. Identity problems, low stress tolerance, and fears of abandonment also make the disorder difficult for patients and for those who live with them. Many with BPD either cannot work or do not function at levels that could be expected in light of their intellectual capacities. As a result, the disorder carries high medical and societal costs, accounting for more than one in every five inpatient psychiatric admissions.

Until recently, psychotherapy offered help for only some of the symptoms of BPD. The best available alternatives, such as Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, relieve many of the self-destructive behavioral symptoms of the disorder, but have not been able to reduce many of the other core symptoms, especially those related to deeper personality change…