Full recovery now possible for an 'untreatable' mental illness

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. ...

Schema Therapy is an integrative approach, founded on the principles of cognitive-behavioral therapy, then expanded to include techniques and concepts from other psychotherapies. Schema therapists help patients to change their entrenched, self-defeating life patterns – or schemas -- using cognitive, behavioral, and emotion-focused techniques. The treatment focuses on the relationship with the therapist, daily life outside of therapy, and the traumatic childhood experiences that are common in this disorder. Dr. Young believes that Schema Therapy's greater effectiveness arises in part from its use of "limited reparenting," which is not part of other approaches to BPD.

Both Schema Therapy and Transference Focused Psychotherapy focus on deeper personality change, in comparison to other recent treatments that have been limited to the reduction of specific behavioral symptoms of the disorder, such as self-mutilation. According to Dr. Young: "Other treatments for BPD, such as Dialectical Behavior Therapy, have also led to more effective coping skills and a significant reduction in self-harm. With Schema Therapy patients are, in addition, breaking free of lives of pain, self-hatred, and emptiness, making deeper personality changes, and significantly improving the quality of their lives."

Even the most intensive version of Schema Therapy mentioned in the first study was found to be cost effective. An economic analysis conducted by the authors of the study indicated that, for each year Schema Therapy patients were in the study, Dutch society benefited from a net gain of 4,500 Euros per patient (the equivalent of about 5,700 US dollars), despite the cost-intensive treatment. The savings over the course of several years after the completion of treatment could actually prove to be higher. The newest innovation, group schema therapy, is likely to be even more cost effective.

Schema therapists and researchers are hoping that these repeated validations of the effectiveness of Schema Therapy for patients with Borderline Personality Disorder -- that for so many years has been considered intractable—will lead to more research studies and will encourage more clinicians to learn Schema Therapy. They also hope that this study will convince healthcare insurers to reimburse the costs of effective longer-term psychotherapy for this painful and costly illness. ... More information can be found at www.schematherapy.com...

via Full recovery now possible for an 'untreatable' mental illness.