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.
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…
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) and narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) are different but can look similar. BPD is marked by unstable moods, a shifting sense of self, fear of abandonment, and often impulsive or self-harming behavior. NPD is marked by grandiosity, a strong need for admiration, low empathy, and using others…
This 2020 article reviews studies on parenting, attachment, and empathy in people with pathological narcissism and proposes using mentalization-based treatment (MBT) as a main therapy. The authors say problems with mentalization — understanding one’s own and others’ thoughts and feelings — are central to their model. They describe core MBT…
This review sums up what researchers have learned about narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) in the last decade. It explains that diagnosis now includes both the old yes/no view and a newer scale-based view, describes two main types called grandiose and vulnerable narcissism, reports many possible causes and mechanisms across areas…
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 study recorded brain activity (EEG) while 68 females aged 13–23 (35 with borderline personality disorder, 33 healthy) did a guessing task with equal wins and losses. People with BPD showed less difference in their brain responses to wins versus losses than healthy peers. Time-frequency tests suggested this smaller difference…
This paper reviews research showing that emotion dysregulation (ED) is not only part of borderline personality disorder (BPD) but also appears across other diagnoses. The authors examined evidence for ED in 8 specific disorders and propose a transdiagnostic model that describes core triggers and interpersonal styles. They say this model…
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.
This systematic review looked at 22 studies that tested what predicts people with personality disorders dropping out of psychotherapy. Dropout rates in the reviewed studies ranged from 10.4% to 58%. The review found consistent links between dropout and factors like younger age, substance use problems, strong emotional dysregulation, trouble tolerating…
Researchers combined baseline data from 548 people in four clinical trials who all had current major depression. They used a network analysis, a method that maps how symptoms link to each other, to see which borderline personality disorder (BPD) and depression symptoms connect. After accounting for how severe the depression…
