Negative attitude of the clinicians and challenges faced during the treatment course with patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) may affect its prognosis. The study aimed to identify and compare the effectiveness of five professions. Clinicians in VIMHANS (n = 5; psychiatrist, clinical psychologist, art therapist, hypnotherapist and occupational therapist) were approached for conducting a detailed interview. The interviews were further transcribed and analysed using Braun & Clarke (2006) guided thematic analysis. The analysis resulted in three themes; ‘Clinician’s attitude’ i.e. the attitude and outlook of five professions towards BPD, “Challenges” i.e. all kinds of difficulties that a clinician faced during therapy sessions and ‘Effective Treatment and Management’ which indicated the ways of improving the prognosis. Suggestions have been given regarding the formulation and implementation of an eclectic approach for the recovery of such patients.
Keywords: Attitudes; Borderline personality disorder; psychiatrist, clinical psychologist, art therapy; hypnotherapy, occupational therapy BACKGROUND …show more content…
It is estimated to occur in 1%-2% of the general population (Torgersenet. Al. 2001) and is the most common personality disorder for which people receive treatment. Ten percent of all psychiatric outpatients and 15%-20% of inpatients are estimated to have BPD (Widiger and Frances, 1989). BPD is characterized by severe impairment in functioning (Skodolet. Al. 2002a), extensive use of psychiatric treatments (Bender et al. 2001), and a mortality rate by suicide of almost 10%-50 times higher than the rate in the general population (Work Group on Borderline Personality Disorder 2001). Nevertheless, effective treatments for BPD exist, and the prognosis-even over as short an interval as 1-2 years –may be better than expected (Gunderson et al. 2003; Shea et al.