borderline personality disorder
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What is borderline personality disorder?
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a mental illness marked by ongoing instability in mood, relationships, and self-image. People with BPD are typically impulsive, have trouble maintaining stable relationships, and are prone to anxiety and feelings of abandonment.
BPD is characterized by an extraordinarily unstable mood and self-image. Individuals with this disorder may exhibit intense episodes of anger, depression, or anxiety. It appears in early adulthood and often fades by middle age. Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is an effective treatment for BPD.
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What are some common symptoms of borderline personality disorder?
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a mental illness marked by mood, relationship, and self-identity instability. Those affected are typically impulsive, have unstable relationships, and are prone to anxiety and feelings of abandonment.
Common symptoms include intense anger, depression, or anxiety episodes, coupled with a desperate fear of abandonment, which can lead to extremes of positive and negative emotions toward others. Reckless behaviors, such as sexual risk-taking, substance abuse, self-mutilation, and suicidal attempts, may also occur. BPD is more commonly diagnosed in early adulthood and tends to decrease in intensity by middle age.
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How does borderline personality disorder affect a person's relationships?
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a mental illness marked by chronic instability in mood, relationships, and self-identity. Those affected typically have unstable interpersonal relationships and are prone to feelings of abandonment.
People with BPD may have intense and unstable relationships that shift from adoration to intense hatred and jealousy. These behaviors can be unpredictable or impulsive.
Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is one form of psychotherapy that can be used to treat BPD.
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What causes borderline personality disorder?
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a mental illness marked by instability in mood, relationships, and self-identity. Etiologic explanations for BPD vary and include constitutional defects in the brainās neurotransmitter systems and a past or present history of head trauma, epilepsy, encephalitis, severe hyperactivity, distractibility, anomalies in various brain structures, and learning disabilities. From a developmental perspective, contributing factors can be an arrest in normal development, excessive frustrations in early childhood, a disturbed separation-individuation process, early parental loss, traumatic separation from parental figures, and childhood physical or sexual abuse leading to ongoing post-traumatic stress disorder.
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How is borderline personality disorder diagnosed?
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a mental illness marked by instability in mood, relationships, and self-identity. Diagnosis occurs in adults over 18, as symptoms in younger individuals may indicate identity confusion.
Diagnosis includes assessing ingrained, maladaptive patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving that impair social or occupational functioning or cause distress. Sufferers may have unstable emotionality, interpersonal relationships, and sense of self, as well as impulsivity. People with BPD may have intense anger, depression, or anxiety, and may engage in reckless behaviors, including substance abuse, sexual risk-taking, self-mutilation, and suicide attempts.
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What treatments are available for people with borderline personality disorder?
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a mental illness marked by unstable moods, relationships, and self-image. Treatment includes long-term psychotherapy, such as dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), which helps the patient accept feelings without judgment while still attempting to change them. Pharmacological agents, including antidepressants, mood stabilizers, and antipsychotics, may also be used for specific symptoms.
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borderline personality disorder (BPD), mental illness characterized by chronic instability in the affected individualās mood, relationships, and sense of identity. The term borderline was first brought into psychiatric terminology in 1938 by American psychoanalyst Adolph Stern. Stern used it to describe patients who were āon the borderā of psychosis and neurosis, individuals who displayed particular symptoms under stress but then soon became relatively functional again. The term has since been used to define alternately a clinical entity, a syndrome, or a personality organization. The diagnosis of BPD has been and remains a subject of intense debate.
The clinical presentation of BPD can vary widely. Afflicted individuals, however, typically are impulsive, have unstable interpersonal relationships, and are prone to anxiety and feelings of abandonment. Antisocial behaviour, an affinity for psychoactive substance abuse, an erratic lifestyle, a tendency for self-mutilation, and suicide attempts are common, and a sense of emptiness and meaninglessness prevails all along. BPD is diagnosed only in persons over age 18. In younger individuals, symptoms may be diagnosed as identity confusion.
Studies have indicated that the prevalence of borderline personality disorder ranges from 1 to 6 percent in the general population and from 10 to 20 percent among psychiatric patients. Although once thought to be more common in women than men, the disorder appears to affect both sexes equally. Alcohol and substance abuse and eating disorders are commonly co-diagnosed.
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Etiologic explanations for BPD vary. Some hypotheses focus on constitutional defects in the brainās various neurotransmitter systems, such as the adrenergic, cholinergic, dopaminergic, and serotonergic systems. Other hypotheses examine the association of the disorder with a past or present history of head trauma, epilepsy, encephalitis, severe hyperactivity, distractibility, anomalies in various brain structures, and learning disabilities. From a developmental perspective, arrest in normal development, excessive frustrations in early childhood, constitutional predisposition (weak ego structure prone to regression), a disturbed separation-individuation process, early parental loss, traumatic separation from parental figures, and childhood physical or sexual abuse leading to ongoing post-traumatic stress disorder are all considered to be possible contributing factors.
Long-term analytic or reality-oriented supportive psychotherapy is a therapeutic mainstay for BPD along with the use of a wide range of pharmacologic agents, including antidepressants, antipsychotics, and mood stabilizers for specific symptoms, often used in low dosages.