title: Borderline personality disorder: patterns of self-harm, reported childhood trauma and clinical outcome.
abstract: CONCLUSIONS
  Consecutive admissions of 214 women with borderline personality disorder were investigated for patterns of specific forms of self-harm and reported developmental experiences. Systematic examination of clinical notes found that 75% had previously reported a history of childhood sexual abuse. These women were more likely to self-harm, and in specific ways that may reflect their past experiences. Despite this, treatment within a dialectical behaviour therapy-informed therapeutic community leads to relatively greater clinical gains than for those without a reported sexual abuse trauma history. Notably, greater behavioural and self-reported distress and dissociation were not found to predict poor clinical outcome.
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  None.
  © The Royal College of Psychiatrists 2015. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Non-Commercial, No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) licence.
authors.affiliation: , Consultant Clinical Psychologist, The Acorn Programme, The Retreat, Heslington Road, York, UK.
authors.forename: Mark Andrew
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: McFetridge
authors.affiliation: , Lecturer, Department of Psychology, University of York, York, UK.
authors.forename: Rebecca
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Milner
authors.affiliation: , Therapeutic Community Manager, HMP Send, Ripley Road, Woking, UK.
authors.forename: Victoria
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Gavin
authors.affiliation: , Lecturer in Affective Neuroscience, Department of Psychology, University of Sheffield, UK.
authors.forename: Liat
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Levita