Designing a range of mentalizing interventions for young people using a clinical staging approach to borderline pathology

• Main Authors: Joost Hutsebaut, Martin Debbané, Carla Sharp
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: BMC 2020-03-01
• Series: Borderline Personality Disorder and Emotion Dysregulation
• Subjects: Early intervention; Borderline personality disorder; Mentalization-based treatment; Clinical staging
• Online Access: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s40479-020-0121-4

Abstract Borderline personality disorder (BPD) can have a long-lasting impact on social and professional functioning, even when core symptoms of BPD are in remission. Adolescence may be a critical developmental period to change the potential long-term functional outcome of BPD. This paper presents a range of mentalizing interventions to alter the course and outcome of BPD, based upon a model of clinical staging. Mentalizing interventions have in common a focus on strengthening self-regulatory and interpersonal capacities, aiming to improve adaptive social learning. This paper argues that these interventions should be dosed and organized according to the stage of progression of BPD, which is illustrated by discussing different specific formats for mentalization-based interventions, including an early-intervention program for BPD and a standard program for full BPD.