Video of Lois Choi-Kain explaining borderline personality disorder
These brief videos improved outcomes, and they’re available online
STUDY: Choi-Kain LW et al, PLOS One 2026
STUDY TYPE: Randomized controlled pilot trial
FUNDING: Brain and Behavior Research Foundation; McLean Eric Dorris Grant
Background
There’s not a lot of reliable education about borderline personality disorder. Lois Choi-Kain’s group at Harvard’s McLean Hospital teamed up with Rebbie Ratner, a YouTuber with lived experience, to create a series of 10 educational videos. Trial tested how they worked.
The Study
- 82 adults newly diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, mostly women in their mid-20s, randomized to 10 short videos about the disorder, the same videos plus feedback from clinicians, or matched general mental-health videos as control.
- Daily assessments tracked mood, interactions, and time alone over 30 days.
Results
For patients, the borderline videos improved knowledge and satisfaction more than the general mental-health videos. Those who got personal feedback in addition to the videos had the best outcomes, with greater improvement in self-related functioning than control by the end of the month.
There was no difference in symptoms or did safety outcomes (all were safe with no adverse events reported).
More scenes from the educational program
Limitations
This pilot study wasn’t powered for symptom-reduction effects. Diagnoses weren’t clinician-verified, video viewing wasn’t confirmed, and concurrent treatment wasn’t tracked.
Practice Implications
Here’s how Lois Choi-Kain recommends sharing a borderline diagnosis, from our 2020 Carlat interview (also available as podcast):
Normalize, emphasizing that it is common and treatable…
- “The problems you’ve told me about bring to mind the diagnosis of borderline personality disorder. It’s a common and potentially disabling disorder, but there are treatments that work for it, and it generally gets better over time.”
Connect the DSM symptoms to problems in their lives…
- “People with borderline personality disorder usually get better when they understand how their symptoms get triggered in relationships. One of those symptoms is interpersonal hypersensitivity, and it reminds me of what you’ve been going through. For example, when your emotions get very intense, I get the sense that you don’t know what to do with them. When you share them with others, they react in ways that make you feel rejected, so much so that you become furious with the person who rejected you.”
That’s a great start. Take it further with these online videos and Good Psychiatric Management, a supportive therapy developed by Drs. Gunderson, Choi-Kain, and colleagues that can be adapted for most psychiatry and therapy practices.
—Chris Aiken, MD
Director, Psych Partners
Editor in Chief, Carlat Psychiatry Report
