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This page is an AI-assisted Turkish summary of the study presented at the 26th World Congress of Psychiatry. The study belongs to the presenting authors; please refer to the original source when citing it.

Psychotherapeutic Work with People with Personality Disorders

Working psychotherapeutically with persons with personality disorders

Psychotherapy is the cornerstone of treatment for personality disorders; meta-analytic evidence supports both psychodynamic psychotherapy and cognitive behavioral therapy, with long-term outcomes appearing more favorable for psychodynamic approaches.

The talk provides a comprehensive overview of psychotherapeutic work with people with personality disorders. Personality disorders are described as common, enduring, and often disabling conditions, affecting an estimated 10% to 18% of the general population, 20% to 40% of psychiatric outpatients, and up to 50% of psychiatric inpatients. The talk highlights their chronic course, their adverse effects on functioning, the challenges they pose to treating co-occurring psychopathology, and the burden they place on families, healthcare systems, and society through increased morbidity, mortality, and service use. The presentation is organized under six headings: general and epidemiological characteristics, guiding principles of treatment, common clinical areas of focus, evidence-based psychotherapy approaches, and future research directions. The core principles include setting realistic goals, committing to a long-term and nonlinear process, maintaining boundaries, ensuring that crisis management strategies are in place, taking cultural context into account, and safeguarding the therapist’s well-being. Clinical areas of focus include affect regulation, impulse control, cognitive restructuring, interpersonal skills, self-identity, and the therapeutic relationship. Pharmacotherapy is assigned an adjunctive role in improving outcomes, while meta-analytic evidence supports both psychodynamic psychotherapy and cognitive behavioral therapy. Long-term outcomes are more favorable for psychodynamic approaches, although the literature focuses predominantly on borderline personality disorder. The talk notes that stepped-care models such as Good Psychiatric Management may expand access to care, and concludes that further research is needed on treatment principles, cost-effectiveness, and the full range of personality disorders.

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