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The newly developed Dissoziations-Spannungs-Skala (Dissociation Tension Scale; DSS) is a self-rating instrument for the assessment of psychological and somatoform dissociative features (ranging from normal up to pathological) as well as aversive inner tension occurring within the past 7 days. The DSS contains 21 items assessing dissociative symptoms and 1 additional item assessing aversive inner tension. Ratings are made on a time-oriented scale ranging from 0% (never) to 100% (constantly). We measured the psychometric qualities of the DSS in a total of 294 patients and healthy controls. Internal consistency of the DSS was high (Cronbach's alpha = .92; Gutmann's split-half r = .92). We found good support for convergent, discriminant, and differential validity. There was clear evidence for the DSS being a sensitive instrument for the assessment of changing symptomatology. Assessment of dissociation and other psychopathological features over the same period of time are now possible.

Young depressed women with and without comorbid BPD display increased visceral fat and may constitute a risk group for the development of NIDDM and the metabolic syndrome. Our data support the hypothesis that the immune and endocrine alterations associated with MDD and BPD may contribute to the pathophysiologic processes associated with NIDDM.

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a severe, challenging to treat mental disorder. Schema therapy (ST) as an individual therapy has been proven to be an effective psychological treatment for BPD. A group format of ST (GST) has been developed and evaluated in a randomized controlled trial in the United States and piloted in The Netherlands. These results suggest that GST speeds up and amplifies treatment effects of ST and might reduce delivery costs. However, feasibility in the German health care system and with BPD patients with high BPD severity and comorbidity, and frequent hospitalization, has not been tested to date. We investigated GST in 10 severely impaired, highly comorbid female patients with BPD, that needed frequent hospital admission. Patients received an outpatient ST-treatment program with weekly group and individual sessions for 1 year. Outcome measures including BPD severity, general psychopathology, psychosocial functioning, quality of life, happiness, schemas, and modes, and days of hospitalization were assessed at the start of treatment and 6, 12, and 36 months later with semi-structured interviews and self-report measures. We observed significant decreases in severity of BPD symptoms, general symptom severity, dysfunctional BPD-specific modes and schemas, and days of hospitalization. Functional modes, quality of live and happiness improved. The results of this feasibility study are promising and encourage further implementation of ST outpatient treatment programs even for patients with severe BPD and high hospitalization risk. However, small sample size and the missing of a control group do not allow the generalizability of these findings.