Towards integrative and holistic psychotherapy: characteristics of psychotherapeutic treatment of patients with borderline personality disorder

Abstract

This paper presents the necessity for integrative and holistic psychotherapy of personality disorders, especially for borderline personality disorder. Personality is a complex, relatively enduring and stable system of deeply embedded psychological structures and processes (Millon, Grossman, Millon, Meagher in Ramnath, 2004). According to Kernberg (1986), personality disorders are a mixture of psychological traits, which lead to important disorders of intrapsychic and/or interpsychic functioning. This conception assumes the necessity for a theoretically and methodologically diversified approach if we want to understand the functioning of personality - healthy or pathological. It is only through the integration of different diagnostic paradigms of personality (Wiggins, 2003) and therapeutic methods (Millon, 1996) that it will be possible to achieve reliable diagnosis and efficient treatment of these clients.