A design for process-outcome psychotherapy research in adolescents with Borderline Personality Pathology

Underage patients with Borderline Personality Pathology (BPP) are in need of specialised psychotherapeutic treatment. A handful of these treatments, including Adolescent Identity Treatment (AIT) and Dialectical Behavior Therapy for Adolescents (DBT-A), have been adapted for adolescent patients. Psychotherapy research has shown that the outcome of different psychotherapeutic approaches can be very similar despite conceptual and practical differences between the theoretical models. Therefore, to understand what really works in psychotherapy, it is necessary to investigate the psychotherapeutic process and its effects on the patient.