DIALECTICAL BEHAVIORAL THERAPY IN INDIVIDUAL FORMAT FOR THE TREATMENT OF BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER: TWO CASE STUDIES

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is one of the most complex challenges a clinician may have ever to face. One of the psychological treatment programs that has received more empirical support for the treatment of this disorder is the Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), developed by Dr Linehan at the University of Washington (USA). This program follows the principles of the cognitive behavioral therapy, and its major objective is for the patient to learn to adjust the patterns of extreme emotionality, to reduce such desadaptive behavior which depends on those emotional patterns, and to learn to trust in his/her own experiences, emotions, thoughts, and behaviors. In order to do so, it is necessary to apply DBT, both in an individual as in group format. The objective of this work is to introduce, step by step, the application of this treatment protocol only in an individual format, and to offer data about its effectiveness in two case studies, two adult women diagnosed of severe BPD. Results show that DBT was effective to diminish the clinical psychopathology, and the main contribution of this study is that this was achieved just applying DBT in its individual format. The variables that may have contributed to the therapeutic success are analyzed.