BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER:
What is Borderline Personality Disorder?*
Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a most misunderstood, serious mental illness
characterized by pervasive instability in moods, interpersonal relationships, self-image, and behavior. It is a disorder
of emotion dysregulation. This instability often disrupts family and work, long-term planning, and the individual’s
sense of self-identity. While less well known than schizophrenia or bipolar disorder (manic-depressive illness), BPD
is as common, affecting between .07 to 2% of the general population.
The disorder, characterized by intense emotions, self-destructive acts, and stormy interpersonal
relationships, was officially recognized in 1980 and given the name Borderline Personality Disorder. It was thought
to occur on the border between psychotic and neurotic behavior. This is no longer considered a relevant analysis and
the term itself, with its stigmatizing negative associations, has made diagnosing BPD problematic. The complex symptoms
of the disorder often make patients difficult to treat and therefore may evoke feelings of anger and frustration in professionals
trying to help, with the result that many professionals are often unwilling to make the diagnosis or treat persons with these
symptoms. These problems have been aggravated by the lack of appropriate insurance coverage for the extended psychosocial
treatments that BPD usually requires. Nevertheless, there has been much progress and success in the past 25 years in
the understanding of and specialized treatment for BPD. It is, in fact, a diagnosis that has a lot of hope for recovery.
