Psychopathological Functioning Levels (PFLs) and their possible relevance in psychiatric treatments: a qualitative research project.

Background: Symptoms description is often not enough to provide clinicians with guidelines for treatments and patients' clinical history does not represent an exhaustive source of data. Psychopathological dysfunctions are known to relate to the core disturbances that underlie different forms of psychopathology so the identification of such dysfunctions could be helpful for treatments. Some tools are available although highly complex and lengthy.

Personality dimensions and working alliance in subjects with borderline personality disorder.

Background: As yet, the relation between personality traits and working alliance has not been investigated in subjects affected by Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).

Method: A sample of forty-nine BPD subjects who completed a module of Sequential Brief Adlerian Psychodynamic Psychotherapy (SB-APP) of 40 sessions has been recruited. Before the onset of psychotherapy an assessment was made with Clinical Global Impression (CGI), Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF), Symptom Checklist Revised 90 (SCL-R 90), and with Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI).

Supervised team management, with or without structured psychotherapy, in heavy users of a mental health service with borderline personality disorder: a two-year follow-up preliminary randomized study.

Background: Individuals affected by severe Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) are often heavy users of Mental Health Services (MHS). Short-term treatments currently used in BPD therapy are useful to target disruptive behaviors but they are less effective in reducing heavy MHS use. Therefore, alternative short-term treatments, less complex than long-term psychodynamic psychotherapies but specifically oriented to BPD core problems, need to be developed to reduce MHS overuse.