The use of psychological treatments for people with personality disorder: A systematic review of randomized controlled trials

When in doubt, randomise . Archie Cochrane (1972) The National Forensic Research and Development Programme commissioned a systematic review of the pharmacological and psychological treatments for personality disorder. Building upon the earlier work, it systematically reviewed the literature up to 2002. Mindful that findings from such reviews need to be constantly updated if they are to continue to be of value, we decided to do so every four years using the same methodology, as in the earlier 2006 review, so as to provide an appropriate comparison. This report is the first of these updates but, for completeness, it also includes the findings from the earlier review. Due to limitations of space, it is restricted to only psychological interventions and to the findings from randomized controlled trials (RCTs). This review therefore excludes evidence from other RCTs that were not included for methodological reasons and from other study designs (as described in the 2006 report), but these will be posted in the National Personality Disorder Institute web site (http://www.pdinstitute.org.uk). A similar report on the use of pharmacological interventions for these disorders will follow in the next edition of this journal.