Evaluation of AIT Study

Specialized treatment of personality disorders (PD) in youth has been neglected for a long time, because these disorders were not diagnosed before the age of 18. Since 2013 the age threshold has been dropped in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM)-5, and such change is also announced for the International Classification of Diseases (ICD)-11. There is broad consensus from both scientific evidence and clinical experience that specialized early interventions in adolescents with PD are urgently needed.

In the last decades a number of specialized psychotherapeutic treatment programs have been developed. Despite their conceptual differences, many of the treatment models have shown significant effects in the treatment of PD in adults. However, the treatment of adolescents with PD remains difficult and further enhancement and development of treatments is needed.

Given the different therapeutic approaches available, the present project aims to go beyond the comparison of integral therapeutic models in the classical outcome study design. While outcome research is important to build on the evidence of the effectiveness of an intervention, it contributes little to its understanding and refinement. The aim of the present multi-center project is to compare two therapeutic methods used in routine care:

* Adolescent Identity Treatment (AIT) * Dialectic Behavioral Treatment for Adolescents (DBT-A)

Treatments will be performed at different study centers and compared using the same measures of outcome. The main outcome will be psychosocial functioning.

Additionally, the psychotherapy process will be investigated to explore specific and unspecific mechanisms of the therapeutic process, its outcome and mediators.