Dr. Saunders uses a standard psychiatric test of “reciprocal altruism” called the Prisoner’s Dilemma to gauge how well treatment works for people with borderline personality disorder (BPD). She theorizes that successful completion of treatment for the disorder will be associated with an improvement in the acquisition and maintenance of cooperative behavior in a repeat test. She will compare 20 individuals with BPD who have completed long-term psychotherapy, 20 untreated individuals and 20 controls.
