You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
There is growing evidence for the efficacy and effectiveness of psychotherapy in the treatment of personality disorders. However, more long-term follow-up studies are needed, particularly of treatments aimed at heterogeneous groups of personality-disordered patients. This study presents 5-year follow-up findings of a psychodynamically oriented hospitalization-based treatment for patients with personality disorders. Results are presented on the completer sample (N = 35) using repeated-measures analyses. Outcome data are reported covering different domains (i.e., symptoms, interpersonal and general functioning, personality organization). Results showed that improvement in symptoms and general functioning was maintained during the follow-up period, and that there was further improvement in interpersonal functioning and personality organization during follow-up, even when controlling for additional psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy. These results support the long-term beneficial effects of psychotherapy in patients with personality disorders and provide further evidence for the assumption that psychodynamic therapy is associated with continuing improvement in personality and interpersonal functioning after the end of treatment. The strengths and limitations of the study and suggestions for future research are discussed.