Celine De Meulemeester|Kristof Vansteelandt|Patrick Luyten|Benedicte Lowyck
Mentalizing as a mechanism of change in the treatment of patients with borderline personality disorder: A parallel process growth modeling approach.
KU Leuven|University Psychiatric Hospital|KU Leuven|KU Leuven|University Psychiatric Hospital|KU Leuven
although number effective psychotherapeutic treatments developed borderline personality disorder bpd little known mechanisms change explaining effects treatments increasing evidence impairments mentalizing reflective functioningthe capacity reflect internal mental states self othersare central feature bpd date study directly investigated core assumption mentalizationbased approach bpd changes capacity associated treatment outcome bpd patients study first directly investigate assumption sample 175 patients bpd received longterm hospitalizationbased psychodynamic treatment using parallel process growth modeling approach study investigated whether treatment related changes mentalizing capacity measured reflective functioning questionnaire b changes could explained pretreatment levels mentalizing andor symptomatic distress c changes mentalizing capacity time associated symptomatic improvement mentalizing symptomatic distress assessed admission 12 24 weeks treatment discharge results showed treatment associated significant decreases mentalizing impairments ie uncertainty mental states symptomatic distress pretreatment levels mentalizing symptomatic distress predict changes however improvements mentalizing strongly associated rate decrease symptomatic distress time r 89 findings suggest increases mentalizing may indeed part explain therapeutic change treatment bpd research needed substantiate conclusions psycinfo database record