Therapy for Clients With Personality Disorders Week 2

Clients with personality disorders often find it difficult to overcome their problems and function in daily life. Even when these clients are aware that they have a dysfunction with their personality and are open to counseling, treatment can be challenging for both the client and the therapist. For this Discussion, as you examine personality disorders, consider therapeutic approaches you might use with clients.

To prepare:

· Review this week’s Learning Resources and reflect on the insights they provide.

· Select one of the personality disorders from the DSM-5.

Post a description of the personality disorder you selected. Explain a therapeutic approach (including psychotropic medications if appropriate) you might use to treat a client presenting with this disorder, including how you would share your diagnosis of this disorder to the client in order to avoid damaging the therapeutic relationship. Support your approach with evidence-based literature.

Learning Resources

Required Readings

Wheeler, K. (Ed.). (2014). Psychotherapy for the advanced practice psychiatric nurse: A how-to guide for evidence-based practice (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Springer Publishing Company.

Chapter 20, “Termination and Outcome Evaluation” (Review pp. 693–712)
American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.

Dixon-Gordon, K. L., Turner, B. J., & Chapman, A. L. (2011). Psychotherapy for personality disorders. International Review of Psychiatry, 23(3), 282–302. doi:10.3109/09540261.2011.586992

Lorentzen, S., Ruud, T., Fjeldstad, A., & Høglend, P. A. (2015). Personality disorder moderates outcome in short- and long-term group analytic psychotherapy: A randomized clinical trial. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 54(2), 129–146. doi:10.1111/bjc.12065

Paris, J. (2004). Personality disorders over time: Implications for psychotherapy. American Journal of Psychotherapy, 58(4), 420–429. PMID: 15807086

Swift, J. K., & Greenberg, R. P. (2015). What is premature termination, and why does it occur? In Premature termination in psychotherapy: Strategies for engaging clients and improving outcomes (pp. 11–31). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. doi:10.1037/14469-002

You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.

The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.