Short-Term Psychotherapy of Personality Disorders

Objective: The efficacy of short-term psychotherapy has become an area of increasing in-terest. The primary objective ofthis study was to assess the results oftwo forms of short-term psychotherapy in patients with personality disorders. Method: Eighty-one patients with per-sonality disorders were randomly assigned to brief adaptive psychotherapy, short-term dy-namic psychotherapy, or a waiting list for therapy. Outcome at termination oftherapy for the treatment groups and at the end ofthe waiting period for the waiting list group was evaluated by means ofratings oftarget complaints and scores on the SCL-90 and the Social Adjustment Scale. In addition, for 38 ofthe treated patients, target complaints were reevaluated an average of I.5 years after treatment ended. Results: Patients in the two therapy conditions improved significantly on all measures in comparison with the patients on the waiting list. There was no significant difference between the results in the two therapy conditions. The waiting list period averaged approximately 1 5 weeks; treatment averaged 40 weeks. At follow-up, after an average of 1.5 years, target complaint ratings were not significantly different from those at the termination oftherapy. Conclusions: These data indicate that briefadaptive psychotherapy and short-term dynamic psychotherapy are effective for patients with certain types of person