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‘Just Give Us The Resources To Treat Personality Disorders’ and then what?

There has been a great clamour this week from mental health bodies, including the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCP) for more monies  to address the grave problems of clients with personality disorders (PDs). But they have neglected to add that there are few randomised controlled trials of psychological treatments for PDs and those that have been conducted have had very different outcome measures. It is important that clients with personality disorder are given realistic expectations of treatment and are protected from commonplace misdiagnosis.

One of my clients lost access to her children in part because a psychiatrist claimed she had an emotional unstable personality disorder (EUPD), fortunately legal action is being taken against the local authority for their part in this debacle. The latter were insistent she attend a mentalisation group, my protest that she did not have a personality disorder and therefore did not have to  attend went unheard! The stresses of taking the legal action have been colossal. Maybe the energies of the RCP might be better spent making sure its’ members make reliable diagnosis.  As part of the legal proceedings in this case a Psychiatric Expert Witness rejected the opinion of the treating psychiatrist but not before a great deal of distress had already been caused to her and her 3 children.

Dr Mike Scott

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