I realise my reply to mrscjh12's question was a bit bleak and short.
The thing about psychotherapy and PD is that at the moment that seems the most promising path, but as I said it seems that a lot more evidence is needed before it can be confidently classed as a generally effective treatment.
Most work so far on PD and psychotherapy seems to be with regard to Anti-Social PD (ASPD) and Borderline PD. These are, I am afraid, the PDs that get the most attention because they impact more greatly on services - ASPD often coming via the criminal justice system and BPD having a high suicidal and self-harm profile.
Having said that I am not saying that people with ASPD or BPD (perhaps especially BPD) have an easy time getting help. The interesting thing about services for PD is that in 2003 the Department of Health published a document called 'Personality Disorder No Longer a Diagnosis of Exxlusion.." This doc obviously acknowledged that a PD diagnosis was used as a way to exclude people from MH services, on the grounds that PD was untreatable. The doc urged greater optimism about treating PD etc. And what has been the result? Well for one thing a well-known and respected specialist PD centre, the Henderson Hospital, closed in 2007. I very much doubt that nationally there has been any expansion of services for PD. And I very much think that psychiatrists still use it as a way of getting rid of patients.
"Therapeutic communities" are specialist units where people attend several times a week for about two years and where they are encouraged to get involved with the running of the "community". e.g. making lunch, and various activities, e.g. creative writing, as well as having some sort of psychotherapy. I don't know much about intensive psychotherapy units but I should think they are what they say they are and they don't have the "community" and more wide-ranging character of therapeutic communities.
