Treatment of personality disorders

Interest in the possibility of successful interventions for personality disorders has increased during the past 2 years, mainly because of heightened awareness of the diagnosis. In particular, efficacy of treatments for borderline personality disorder has improved, with good evidence for the superiority of focused day hospital psychotherapy compared with standard care, and somewhat less convincing evidence for the value of sodium valproate in this condition. Other reports also suggest that both psychosocial and pharmacological treatments are both likely to have a significant role to play in the treatment of all personality disorders, and for the first time these modalities are being properly evaluated in good research studies. The view that personality disorders are untreatable can now be challenged with serious evidence.