Barbara Alexander, LCSW, BCD, interviews three experts who discuss various aspects of diagnosing and treating borderline personality disorder.

Sandy Hotchkiss, MSW, BCD, outlines three different levels of borderline personalities and discusses how each type can or cannot be successfully treated using brief therapy. Charles McCormack, MSW, describes the challenge of treating couples in borderline marriages. Charles Swenson, MD, provides an overview of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), a comprehensive, cognitive-behavioral treatment for individuals meeting criteria for borderline personality disorder.

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Subject Matter Experts:

Sandy Hotchkiss, MSW, BCD, is a licensed clinical social worker and Board Certified Diplomate in Clinical Social Work in private practice in Pasadena, California. She received her masters degree from the University of Southern California. Her work with character-disordered patients is informed by postgraduate studies in self-psychology and supervision of and in the Masterson approach. This discussion is based on a paper presented at the 20th anniversary clinical conference of the Clinical Social Work Federation.

Charles McCormack, MSW, BCD, author of Treating Borderline States in Marriage: Dealing with Ruthless Aggression, Severe Resistance and Oppositionalism, is on the teaching and supervisory faculty of Sheppard Pratt Hospital in Baltimore and is a guest faculty member of the Washington School of Psychiatry's Psychoanalytic Object Relations Family and Couples Therapy Training Program. He has presented numerous papers and workshops in the United States and Canada on the treatment of "difficult to treat" individuals, couples, and families. In 1994, Mr. McCormack was named Clinician of the Year by the Maryland Society of Clinical Social Workers. He currently supervises and maintains a private practice in Baltimore.

Charles Swenson, MD, is associate professor of clinical psychiatry at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center and medical director for the Department of Mental Health in Western Massachusetts. While at the New York Hospital Cornell Medical Center in White Plains, New York, he directed a psychoanalytically oriented inpatient program for borderline patients. He later developed the first DBT multi-program on the East Coast for borderline personality disorder. Dr. Swenson was twice named "Teacher of the Year" by psychiatry residents at Cornell. He publishes and lectures extensively on treatment approaches for borderline patients and consults widely to systems and providers in implementing and applying DBT.

Interviewer:

Barbara Alexander, LCSW, BCD, is a graduate of the Smith College School for Social Work and the Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy Program of the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis. After working for 13 years in child psychiatric settings and 30 years in private practice, she is now founder and president of On Good Authority, and an expert interviewer.

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