Problem Solving Therapy for People with Personality Disorders: An Overview

The National Institute for Mental Health in England's (2003) paper, Personality Disorder: No Longer a Diagnosis of Exclusion, led to a need for effective treatments for people with personality disorders. Problem‐solving therapy (PST) is an appropriate treatment because, rather than trying to change basic personality structure, the aim is to help people with personality disorder to learn new skills to manage their emotional dysregulation and to work within their abilities to cope more effectively with life's problems. This overview describes the underpinning model of social problem‐solving and explains how PST aims to assist with problem‐solving difficulties.