Treatment of suicidal and deliberate self-harming patients with borderline personality disorder using dialectical behavioral therapy: the patients’ and the therapists’ perceptions

The aim was to investigate patients and therapists perception of receiving and giving dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT). Ten deliberate self-harm patients with borderline personality disorder and four DBT-therapists were interviewed. The interviews were analyzed with qualitative content analysis. The patients unanimously regard the DBT-therapy as life saving and something that has given them a bearable life situation. The patients and the therapists are concordant on the effective components of the therapy: The understanding, respect, and confirmation in combination with the cognitive and behavioral skills. The experienced effectiveness of DBT is contrasted by the patient’s pronouncedly negative experiences from psychiatric care before entering DBT.