Conclusion (mine, not the authors)
We have very little evidence for what helps those who end up being given a diagnosis of ‘personality disorder’ when they are in crisis.
The studies with the best evidence were those most related to what we know helps people with this diagnosis (or what helps people with recurrent self-harm and suicidality with histories of abandonment and abuse).
It could be argued that the areas without the evidence are the ones that move furthest from what is known to help.
It would be useful if services for this group of people were designed with them in mind, rather than creating environments that include what is known to be unhelpful, while a failure to thrive is attributed to their diagnosis.
The endeavour to comprehend why certain individuals develop posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms subsequent to experiencing traumatic events, while others do not, underscores the paramount importance of pretraumatic risk factors. This meta-analysis summarises the extant results of studies assessing risk factors prior exposure and PTSD symptoms following an index event on the same participants. To read the full article, choose Open Athens “Institutional Login” and search for “Midlands Partnership”.
Group schema therapy (GST) is increasingly popular as a treatment for personality disorders (PDs), including Cluster-C PDs. Individual ST has proven to be effective for Cluster-C PD patients, while the evidence for GST is limited. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of GST for Cluster-C PD. Moreover, differences between the specific Cluster-C PDs (avoidant PD, dependent PD and obsessive-compulsive PD) were explored.
Recent diagnostic developments suggest that paranoia is a transdiagnostic characteristic common to several personality disorders rather than a personality disorder per se. Nonetheless, empirical literature fails to provide comprehensive and univocal findings on whether and how paranoid presentations relate to different personality disorders. In the present scoping review, we map the empirical literature on paranoid presentations in personality disorders, considering the entire spectrum of paranoid manifestations (i.e., the paranoia hierarchy). To read the full article, choose Open Athens “Institutional Login” and search for “Midlands Partnership”.
The schema mode model offers a new conceptualisation of complex dissociative disorders (CDD) as it explains shifts between identities as shifts between schema modes. Furthermore, in this model CDD is conceived as personality pathology, incorporating core features of personality disorders. This study tested the assumptions of this schema mode model of CDD.
This work aims to demonstrate, through the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) responses, an altered emotional pattern in borderline personality disorder (BPD) patients and to find a specific emotional response pattern by understanding their relationship with traumatic experiences and attachment bonds towards their primary caregivers. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cpp.2893?af=R
Although complex post-traumatic stress disorder and borderline personality disorder are distinct disorders, there is confusion in clinical practice regarding the similarities between the diagnostic profiles of these conditions. We summarise the differences in the diagnostic criteria that are clinically informative and we illustrate these with case studies to enable diagnostic accuracy in clinical practice. To read the full article, choose Open Athens “Institutional Login” and search for “Midlands Partnership”.
The paper we (David Foreman and Keir Harding) are blogging about allows us to ask a crucial question: does making the diagnosis do more harm than good?