Each month our editorial team sifts through hundreds of papers and curates notable findings—for practitioners and informed readers who want to stay current with the evidence. Subscribe to the monthly Research Digest for expert analysis and concise summaries of key papers.
This 2012 paper reviewed meta-analyses on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). The authors found 269 meta-analytic studies and examined a representative sample of 106 reviews across many problems. They reported the strongest support for CBT for anxiety disorders, somatoform disorders, bulimia, anger control problems, and general stress. The paper concluded the…
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a serious mental illness marked by big problems with emotion control, impulsive acts, and unstable self-image and relationships. Many people with BPD hurt themselves or try suicide (recurrent suicidal behaviour in about 69–80% and suicide rates up to 10%). Mentalization-based treatment (MBT) was developed to…
This review looked at 13 studies of attachment in people with borderline personality disorder (BPD) or BPD traits. Every study found a strong link between BPD and insecure attachment. The insecure types most often seen were labeled unresolved, preoccupied, and fearful. The authors note that differences in how attachment was…
Researchers reviewed many outcome studies and meta-analyses of psychodynamic therapy, which is a type of talking therapy that explores feelings, relationships, and past experiences. They found that psychodynamic therapy often works better than doing nothing (for example being on a waitlist, getting only usual care, or a placebo) for depression,…
Betrayal is described as feeling harmed by the deliberate actions or failures of someone you trust. The paper says common betrayals include sharing secrets, disloyalty, infidelity, and dishonesty, and that they can cause shock, grief, obsessive thinking, low self-esteem, self-doubt, anger, and sometimes life-changing problems. The author reports experiments showing…
This article explains that integrative psychotherapy joins ideas and techniques from different therapy schools and focuses on shared, helpful elements such as the therapeutic relationship. It notes there are many psychotherapy models, that most therapists use more than one approach, and that research shows integrative treatments can be effective for…
Transference-focused psychotherapy (TFP) is a psychodynamic treatment with research support for borderline personality disorder (BPD). The authors describe an adapted form called TFP-N for people with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) or narcissistic traits. TFP-N keeps core elements like a treatment contract and an interpretive process to identify and change harmful…
This systematic review looked at studies that followed people with borderline personality disorder after they finished dialectical behavior therapy (DBT). The authors found 10 articles from 7 primary studies and reported that benefits of DBT generally lasted through at least 1 year and, in some reports, up to 2 years…
This paper describes Trauma-Focused Mentalization-Based Treatment (MBT-TF). MBT-TF is an adapted form of MBT made for people with attachment or complex trauma, and sometimes borderline personality features. It is run as a group treatment, usually lasting 6–12 months, and is built around helping people process trauma with others and rebuild…
This paper describes a planned randomized trial that will test whether asking patients to regularly record, reflect on, and share their emotional reactions to their therapist changes the therapy relationship and treatment results. Adults in individual psychotherapy are randomized 1:1 to either usual care or a 10-week intervention where they…
The Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory, now in its fourth edition (MCMI-IV), is a 175-question true-or-false test that clinicians use to identify personality problems and related clinical syndromes. It was built from Theodore Millon’s ecological-motivational theory, which says personality grows from basic survival drives and life experiences. When used alongside a…
This study suggests that certain FPs, distinctively named Teddy Bear Person, may behave in a particular manner to increase the likelihood of the FP relationship becoming more destructive. Moreover, the rejection sensitivity model should be discussed to understand their dysfunctional interaction.
