Mevr. L.W. Choi-Kain (Lois)

I am currently the Director of the Gunderson Personality Disorders Institute (GPDI), a center of training for treatments for borderline personality disorder (BPD) and research on outcomes as well as the social cognitive mechanisms targeted in these interventions. My research training began as a post-doctoral fellow under the supervision of John Gunderson, M.D. I developed an intensive residential treatment program, the Gunderson Residence, combining various empirically supported therapies with a milieu setting emphasizing rehabilitation of social and occupational functioning. I also developed a training institute offering CME-accredited trainings in MBT, DBT, DBT-PTSD, transference-focused psychotherapy (TFP), and good psychiatric management (GPM). My aim as a researcher is to expand the scope and reach of effective interventions for BPD as a regular fixture of routine mental health care, to allow earlier intervention and facilitation of recovery before the burdens of illness too greatly diminish developmental opportunities critical to fostering healthy personality functioning.