Mary Zanarini’s landmark, decades-long study of Borderline Personality Disorder, The McLean Study of Adult Development, significantly changed our understanding of BPD. Her study revealed that BPD has the best symptomatic outcome of all major psychiatric illnesses, is highly treatable, has a high remission and recovery rate, and a lower suicide rate than previously expected. It also showed that psychotherapy (rather than medication) is the primary treatment.

In addition Dr. Zanarini led the development of the McLean Screening Instrument for Borderline Personality Disorder (MSI-BPD), a widely used test to screen for BPD and the Zanarini Rating Scale for Borderline Personality Disorder (ZAN-BPD), the most widely used instrument for assessing the evolution of symptoms over time.
Dr. Zanarini is the Director, Laboratory for the Study of Adult Development at McLean Hospital and Professor of Psychology, Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School