A borderline personality disorder diagnosis may improve clinical psychology trainees' treatment beliefs.
Katie E Hastings, Adam Hahn
✦ AI-curated · Sources linked
In 30 seconds
This randomized 2 × 2 vignette experiment examined whether a borderline personality disorder (BPD) diagnosis and a character’s age influenced treatment beliefs and anticipated responses among 242 clinical psychology trainees. Participants considered a 27- or 70-year-old character with BPD symptoms, presented with or without a diagnosis. Trainees expressed more favourable beliefs about therapeutic relationships and treatability when the character had a BPD diagnosis than when the same symptoms were presented without a diagnosis. They also anticipated more infantilising behaviour toward older than younger characters, regardless of diagnostic label.
Key findings
- A BPD diagnosis was associated with more positive beliefs about the therapeutic relationship and greater conviction that the person was treatable.
- Trainees anticipated more infantilising behaviour toward 70-year-old than 27-year-old characters, independent of diagnostic label.
Why it matters
The findings suggest that, among these trainees, a BPD label did not worsen treatment expectations and may have supported more favourable beliefs than symptom descriptions without a diagnosis. However, age-related expectations also emerged: older adults were more likely to be met with anticipated infantilising behaviour. These results highlight that diagnostic and age-related assumptions can shape clinicians’ expectations, even in a vignette-based setting.
What to keep in mind
The study measured trainees’ beliefs and anticipated reactions to a vignette, not their behaviour in clinical encounters or patient outcomes.