Teaching Mental Awareness: New Treatment Approach for Personality Disorder

Course overview

No empirically proven treatments are currently available for individuals with antisocial personality disorder (ASPD). The authors describe the potential benefits of teaching patients mentalization - the ability to recognize and understand the mental states of oneself and others. Patients with comorbid ASPD or borderline personality disorder participating in mentalization-based therapy (MBT) were compared with a control group receiving standard treatment. The MBT group showed greater reductions in ASPD-related behaviors such as aggression and paranoia, as well as improvements in negative mood, social adjustment, and general psychiatric symptoms.