ADULT

The McLean Center for the Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder

John Gunderson, MD, Clinical Director

John Gunderson, MD

The Center for the Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder at McLean Hospital provides a comprehensive array of services cutting across all levels of care. The Center offers treatment by dedicated professionals with specialized training and experience in working with persons with borderline personality disorder. The program offers an innovative combination of behavioral therapy, medication management and psychoeducational services, which are aimed at enhancing self-reliance and social functioning, while significantly reducing the need for hospitalization.

What is Borderline Personality Disorder?

Persons with borderline personality disorder have a pervasive pattern of unstable relationships, self-image, emotions and impulse control. They present with a combination of problems that often include depression, anxiety, posttraumatic symptoms, substance abuse and/or eating disorders. They may have recurrent problems with abandonment fears, angry outbursts, identity disturbances, recurring self-damaging behavior or suicidality, intolerance of being alone and chronic feelings of emptiness or boredom.

Overview of Treatment

The Center for the Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder at McLean provides services suitable for patients with a wide range of disability. These include persons with recurrent crises that may be life endangering, persons with chronically unstable, unfulfilling lives and persons who have elements of borderline personality disorder, but not the full disorder. The Center identifies treatment plans and programs that are individually tailored for each individual. Treatments reflect the latest advances in psychosocial and psychopharmacological treatments, drawing from psychodynamic, biological, social-psychological, and cognitive-behavioral perspectives.

The Center for the Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder conducts initial outpatient evaluations in which treatment needs are identified and recommendations are made for placement in the appropriate clinical services.

The Center offers residential, partial hospital, comprehensive outpatient and individual psychotherapy services. All treatment plans incorporate the evaluation services and a referral to an experienced individual psychotherapist.

Residential care is provided in a highly structured home-like setting. Staff support is provided 24 hours a day, seven days a week through community residence counselors with senior clinical and medical backup.

Partial hospital treatment is provided in a highly structured therapeutic milieu that is part of the Behavioral Health Partial Hospital Program. The program operates Monday through Friday (up to 20 hours per week) and includes intensive group and individual therapies, case management, family interventions, medication management, expressive therapy and vocational counseling. Principles of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) and dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) guide much of the treatment.

A comprehensive outpatient program offers approximately 10 groups per week and psychopharmacologic services. The groups include: Self Assessment Group, DBT Skills Group, Interpersonal Group, Vocational Issues Group, Readiness Group and the Psychoeducational Family Interventions and Multiple Family Groups.

Program Staff

John Gunderson, MD, and his colleagues have been central to the development of knowledge about personality disorders, including their diagnoses, causes and treatments. Clinicians working with Dr. Gunderson are experienced professionals with extensive training and special interest in treating individuals with personality disorder. Edmund Neuhaus, PhD, and George Smith, LICSW, direct partial hospital and outpatient services respectively. Elizabeth Murphy, PhD, coordinates the DBT services and Maureen Smith, LICSW, coordinates family services. Mary Zanarini, EdD, oversees an extensive research program.

Helpful Links

Information

For information concerning the Center for the Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder, including residential services and comprehensive programming, call Corina Kopp at 617.855.3452 or email ckopp@mclean.harvard.edu, Monday through Friday. Please note that insurance coverage may be limited for some services, especially for longer-term residential treatment; please see our policies for financial responsibility.

About McLean Hospital

U.S. News & World Report consistently ranks McLean Hospital the nation's top psychiatric hospital. McLean is the largest psychiatric clinical care, teaching and research facility of Harvard Medical School, an affiliate of the Massachusetts General Hospital and a member of Partners HealthCare.