Borderline Personality Disorder Treatment and Assessment

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is characterised by pervasive instability in emotion regulation, self‐image and interpersonal relationships, often accompanied by impulsive and self-harm behaviours. Assessment traditionally relies on structured clinical interviews and self-report scales, but recent work has expanded this to include biomarkers and measures of higher-order cognition. Treatment remains centred on specialised psychotherapeutic approaches, with dialectical behaviour therapy and mentalization-based treatment at the forefront, complemented by pharmacological and adjunctive interventions to manage comorbidities. Emerging research emphasises personalised care informed by neurobiological markers and transdiagnostic models of resilience, while continual refinement of assessment tools enhances early identification and monitoring. Globally, improving access to evidence-based therapies and integrating digital platforms promise to reduce burden and optimise long-term outcomes.

Research from Nature Portfolio

No recent Nature Portfolio content available.

Borderline Personality Disorder Treatment and Assessment publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in borderline personality disorder treatment and assessment across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Epigenetics: The study of heritable changes in gene function that do not involve alterations in the DNA sequence, often through chemical modifications such as DNA methylation.

Mentalization: The capacity to understand one’s own and others’ behaviour in terms of underlying mental states, including thoughts, feelings and intentions.

Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT): A cognitive-behavioural treatment model emphasising skills training in distress tolerance, emotion regulation and interpersonal effectiveness, originally designed for borderline personality disorder.

Reflective Functioning Questionnaire (RFQ): A self-report instrument assessing an individual’s level of certainty and uncertainty about their own and others’ mental states, used to measure mentalizing ability in clinical and non-clinical populations.

References

1. Differential methylation of OPRK1 in borderline personality disorder is associated with childhood trauma. Molecular Psychiatry (2024).
2. Development and Validation of a Self-Report Measure of Mentalizing: The Reflective Functioning Questionnaire. PLOS ONE (2016).
3. Mentalization-Based Treatment. Psychoanalytic Inquiry (2013).
4. Dialectical Behavioral Therapy for Adolescents (DBT-A): a clinical Trial for Patients with suicidal and self-injurious Behavior and Borderline Symptoms with a one-year Follow-up. Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health (2011).