Transdiagnostic treatment of borderline personality disorder and comorbid disorders: A clinical replication series

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a severe, difficult-to-treat psychiatric condition that represents a large proportion of treatment-seeking individuals. BPD is characterized by high rates of co-occurrence with depressive and anxiety disorders, and recently articulated conceptualizations of this comorbidity suggest that these disorders may result from common temperamental vulnerabilities and functional maintenance factors. The Unified Protocol for the Transdiagnostic Treatment of Emotional Disorders (UP) was developed to address these shared features relevant across frequently co-occurring disorders. The purpose of the present study was to explore the preliminary efficacy of the UP for treatment of BPD with comorbid depressive and/or anxiety disorders in a clinical replication series consisting of five cases. For the majority of cases, the UP resulted in clinically significantly decreases in BPD, anxiety, and depressive symptoms, as well as increases in emotion regulation skills.