Walking a Difficult Line: Taking a Look at Borderline Personality Disor

Walking a Difficult Line: Taking a Look at Borderline Personality Disorder Individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) live a difficult existence. These are people for whom maintaining normal interpersonal relationships, controlling anger, suffer from extreme self-doubt and drastic mood swings, among other symptoms. They comprise only 2% of the population, but have a disorder which the psychiatric and scientific communities have trouble acknowledging, and great difficulty treating. (4) Individuals suffering from BPD suffer a range of symptoms which include the following: dramatic mood changes, depression, irritability, uncontrollable anger, negative impulsiveness (which includes reckless sex, substance abuse, binging), suicidal feelings, self-mutilation, extreme self-doubt about one’s capabilities. (6)(3) They also experience a kind of heightened awareness of their environment and thus are overly stimulated by it. (1) In addition to these and other symptoms, individuals with BPD often suffer from other mental disorders – such as depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorders – as well, making their BPD difficult to diagnose. (4) There is a great mystery surrounding the causes of all mental disorders, and this is also the case with BPD. Psychologists and scientists believe that it is both a biological and psychological disease, and that BPD as an illness is closely related to depression more than schizophrenia, which had been the previous thoug h. Experts have also believe that attention-deficit disorders could be a cause factor, as well as childhood abuse or neglect. (6) Many people suffering from BPD experience very strong feelings of abandonment by parents, family and friends, that can be triggered by an inci... ...lineresearch.org/ 4) National Institute of Mental Health, BPD article "Raising Questions, Finding Answers" http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/bpd.cfm 5) National Institute of Mental Health , BPD article "Concept for Borderline Personality Disorder Initiative in FY 2003" research initiative http://www.nimh.nih.gov/council/cncptcuthbert_901.cfm 6) National Alliance for the Mentally Ill site on BPD http://www.nami.org/Template.cfm?Section=By_Illness&Template=/TaggedPage/TaggedPageDisplay.cfm&TPLID=54&ContentID=23040 7) Dr. Linehan’s DBT course of treatment ("A Promising Treatment...") http://www.mclean.harvard.edu/psychupdate/psyupI-3.htm More Information: 8) More basic information on BPD http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?id=476&type=doc&cn=Personality%20Disorders 9) More information on DBT (treatment) http://www.priory.com/dbt.htm