Samenvatting

‘There are other options’ is the title of a literary research study into the merits of interventions by a multidisciplinary team based on psychomotor therapy, regarding the treatment of self-mutilating patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD). The book ‘Omgaan met zelfbeschadiging en suïcidaal gedrag’ (Klerk et al., 2010), explains the theoretical model by Slee (2008). This information clarifies possible causes for self-mutilation. Of the people with BPD, 70 to 75% engage in self-mutilation (Gunderson, as cited in Gratz & Gunderson, 2006).Kool Self-mutilation is caused by a disturbed emotion regulation and a disturbed body perception, which are in turn caused by various psychosocial factors. ‘There are other options’ uses psychomotor treatment strategies (NVPMT, 2009) as a guiding thread to structure its research. Strikingly enough, the results of the study show that besides the practice-oriented functional strategy, which comprises the interventions of emotion regulation, a significant amount of interventions utilize the experience-oriented stimulation strategy. Examples thereof are mindfulness and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). Regarding the discovering-conflict oriented strategy, the Pesso-therapy is the related practice method for the treatment of self-mutilating patients with BPD. These three distinct psychomotor strategies provide interventions for the treatment of self-mutilating BPD patients, all of which are to be examined in this study.