OBJECTIVE The authors conducted a meta-analysis to address the effectiveness of psychodynamic therapy and cognitive behavior therapy in the treatment of personality disorders. METHOD Studies of psychodynamic therapy and cognitive behavior therapy that were published between 1974 and 2001 were collected. Only studies that 1) used standardized methods to diagnose personality disorders, 2) appli...

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study is to compare the clinical outcome of patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) who had received outpatient psychotherapy for 1 year with BPD patients who received no formal psychotherapy for the same period. METHOD Thirty patients with BPD were treated by trainee psychotherapists working according to clearly described therapeutic principles. They rec...

There have been calls for the creation of a non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) disorder, and a recent DSM-5 work group has delineated potential diagnostic criteria for the proposed disorder. Preliminary research comparing NSSI disorder to Axis I disorders and its closest diagnostic 'neighbor', borderline personality disorder (BPD), suggests that impairment at intake, patient history of associated ...

OBJECTIVE The extant literature indicates that individuals with borderline personality disorder generally report higher levels of pain than individuals without this disorder. This study examined relationships between borderline personality symptomatology, pain, and pain catastrophizing (a related aspect of the pain experience). METHOD Using a cross-sectional consecutive sample of internal med...

Previous studies of aggressive personality and counterproductive behavior have typically employed only one type of personality measurement, the traditional self-report method, and have rarely attempted to predict naturally occurring behavioral indicators of aggression. This study intended to address both of those issues. Researchers, using multiple measures of other personality domains, have re...

OBJECTIVE Orbitofrontal cortex lesions produce disinhibited or socially inappropriate behavior and emotional irregularities. Characteristics of borderline personality disorder include impulsivity and affective instability. The authors investigated whether aspects of borderline personality disorder, in particular impulsivity, are associated with orbitofrontal cortex dysfunction. METHOD Measure...

Behavioral observation techniques which relate action to personality have long been neglected (Furr and Funder in Handbook of research methods in personality psychology, The Guilford Press, New York, 2007) and, when employed, often use human judges to code behavior. In the current study we used an alternative to human coding (biomechanical research techniques) to investigate how personality tra...