Designing an Integrative Pathological Model and Treatment and Determining Its Effectiveness on Emotional Instability among People with Borderline Personality Traits: A Mixed Study

Subject Areas : Journal of Excellence in counseling and psychotherapy

Zeinab Zakerzadeh ¹ , Mohsen Golparvar ² , Asghar Aghaei ³

1 - PhD Student, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Isfahan (Khorasgan) Branch Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran.
2 - Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Isfahan (Khorasgan) Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran.
3 - Professor, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Isfahan (Khorasgan) Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran.

Received: 2020-07-24 Accepted : 2020-11-14 Published : 2021-04-21

Keywords: borderline personality disorder, Integrative therapy, injuries, emotional instability,

Abstract :

Purpose:  Borderline personality characteristics can cause many problems in the life of people with these characteristics. Accordingly, the aim of this study was to design an integrative pathological model and treatment and determining its effectiveness on emotional instability among borderline individuals. Methodology: The present study is a mixed research (qualitative and quantitative). In the qualitative stage, Clarke & Braun (2006) thematic analysis approach was used. The context of the research in qualitative stage was the texts related to borderline individuals’ injuries, sample size was the 25 reference texts that were selected in a purposeful manner. At this stage, after extracting the spectrum of injuries with the use of specialized panel group, the required treatments for the spectrum of injuries were determined and an integrated treatment package with an agreement coefficient of 0.94 was designed. In the quantitative stage a semi-experimental design with two groups and three stages (pre-test, post-test and follow up) was used. In the quantitative stage, from 70 persons with borderline personality characteristics, 30 persons were selected based on criteria of entry and then randomly assigned in an experimental and a control group (each group with 15 person). The group of integrated oriented therapy received 15 sessions of treatment and the control group did not receive any treatment. Emotional instability scale was used to measure the dependent variable in the pretest, post-test and follow up. Data in qualitative stage were analyzed by thematic analysis and in quantitative stage were analyzed by Chi square test, repeated measure analysis of variance and post hoc Bonferroni test trough SPSS 24 software. Findings: The findings of the qualitative stage for designing integrative therapy package indicated five categories of injuries including emotional and behavioral vulnerability, perceptual and cognitive vulnerability, identity vulnerability, social vulnerability and physical vulnerability for individuals with borderline personality characteristics. In the quantitative stage, the results showed that there isn’t a significant difference between the integrated oriented therapy and control groups in emotional instability in post-test (P=0.205). But in the follow-up phase, it significantly reduced emotional instability (P<0.001). Conclusion: Based on the findings and according to the spectrum of five integrated injuries of individuals with borderline personality characteristics, integrated oriented therapy can be considered as a therapeutic approach for emotional instability of borderline individuals.