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Nowadays, psychotherapy is regarded as the treatment of choice for patients with Borderline Personality Disorder(BPD). A consensus has yet to be reached, however, despite various controlled studies undertaken to determine the most suitable form of treatment. At both public and private mental health institutions, there is a growing number of BPD patients seeking treatment. These patients pose a challenge for institutional programs because their demands usually exceed the «therapeutic capacity» of conventional forms of psychiatric treatment. Due to this heavy demand, various strategies have been examined in order to treat this type of patients properly. These include short group therapy. This article presents the results of a controlled clinical study comparing the effectiveness of treatment according to the composition of the groups: a homogeneous group, consisting solely of borderline patients and another in which only half had been diagnosed with BPD while the others only had Axis 1 disorders, with no serious personality pathology. The study considered the variables of psychiatric symptomatology, quality of life, self-esteem, «ego strength», perceived social support, social adjustment and inter-personal problems. Both groups contained female subjects only. The quantitative results of the mixed group show significant changes in the psychiatric symptoms as well as the evolution of interpersonal problems and current quality of life. At the same time, the homogeneous group showed changes in the ideal quality of life and the self-esteem scale. A comparison of the base and final scores showed that the BPD group showed no reduction in psychiatric symptomatology, nor was there a positive evolution in inter-personal relations. At the same time, when other groups were compared, it was obvious that patients in the mixed group showed greater changes in interpersonal problems and depression, anxiety, paranoid and hostility symptoms. … [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The treatment of election for patients with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), consists on the combination of psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy. Concerning a psychoanalitic and individual focus, there has been found, that in spite of the differences in orientations and the therapists experience, the manifestations of the disorder tend to decrease. First of all, a decrease in the impulsivity and an increase in the affective stability is seen, whether the identity alterations modify poorly with treatments of a duration of up to two years. Traditionally, patients with BPD have not been considered apt for group therapy, because their disruptive behavior interferes with the development of the groupal cohesion; however, this characteristics are the ones that can be rapidly treated in the group, when putting a slight pressure on the patient so he can modify this maladaptive behavior. The objectives of group therapy, are consistent with the ones in individual therapy. They include stability for patients, management of impulsivity and other symptoms, and management of the reactions in the transference and counter transference. The presence of other patients helps to establish limits between the participants and it also generates an altruistic interaction, in which they can consolidate their changes in the process of helping others. Group therapists suggest that individual therapy can be accelerated if the patient participates in the group in which the primitive fantasies arc stimulated and where the group structure provides a support that helps personal growth. One of the most difficult tasks in any therapy is the desertion of the patients. Specially, the group is vulnerable to desertion, in its initial stage, since it has been recorded that there is a 13 to 63% of desertions. The purpose of the present study was to determine the psychological and psychopathological variables in patients with BPD, that influence the compliance in a group therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]