Dr LeCrone
05-31-2006, 01:46 PM
In past columns, I have discussed several of the personality disorders and would now like to present one of the most challenging, severe, difficult to understand and manage of all of the variety of personality disorders.
Like other personality disorders, the Borderline Personality Disorder is a chronic mental condition which affects a person’s ability to function in everyday activities. It usually affects one’s work, family, and social relationships. Many individuals have some of the traits and characteristics of personality disorders but in order to be labeled personality disorder, these traits must be pervasive (long standing) and persistent. A correct diagnosis is sometimes difficult and time consuming, and is usually only given after examination by a mental health professional. During times of prolonged stress or during certain developmental stages (especially adolescence) many of these characteristics are more intense and problematic. Personality disorders usually or often coexist with other mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety.
Individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) are often said to be living on a psychological edge. They experience instability in identity, moods, and relationships. These individuals intensely fear and frantically avoid real or imagined abandonment. Often experiencing despondency, rage and fury, self hatred, arrogance, anxiety and uncertainty, these individuals live in a world of “ups and downs.” Along with the above mentioned features, they also exhibit feelings of emptiness, clingy dependency and violent, often self-damaging impulses. They are often said to be living in perpetual anguish and some mental health professionals have described this condition as a form of “emotional hemophilia” – the individual lacks the psychological clotting mechanisms that enable them to control feelings in a healthy manner. Often they are described as being incapable of exhibiting such emotions as sadness, anger and worry in moderate proportions. Every reaction is extreme. Often impulsive to the point of being potentially self-damaging, these individuals may exhibit impulsivity in spending, and/or sexual behavior, substance abuse, binge eating and other reckless behaviors. They often engage in self-mutilating acts and threaten or attempt suicide. Their tendency to perceive the world around them in black-or-white, good-or-bad, and all-or-nothing terms often makes them difficult for other people to deal with. At times, they have problems that manifest themselves in such extreme ways as a temporary loss of feelings of reality and/or severe disassociative symptoms. Transient stress related paranoia is also experienced by those suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder.
Borderline Personality Disorder is diagnosed in about 2% of the general population and impairments from this disorder and risk of suicide are higher in young adult years. It is seen more frequently in women than men and is more common among first-degree biological relatives of those with the disorder. A high percent of these individuals have been physically or sexually abused early in life and many researchers in borderline personality feel that these individuals inherit a predisposition to poor mood regulation and impulse control.
Most Borderline individuals come from parenting backgrounds which include inconsistent and unpredictable parenting. However, these problems are not always obvious and require a thorough and in-depth assessment to reveal the familial roots of distress.
Next week I will continue my discussion of the Borderline Personality Disorder.
Harold H. LeCrone, Jr., Ph.D. Copyright 1999
Like other personality disorders, the Borderline Personality Disorder is a chronic mental condition which affects a person’s ability to function in everyday activities. It usually affects one’s work, family, and social relationships. Many individuals have some of the traits and characteristics of personality disorders but in order to be labeled personality disorder, these traits must be pervasive (long standing) and persistent. A correct diagnosis is sometimes difficult and time consuming, and is usually only given after examination by a mental health professional. During times of prolonged stress or during certain developmental stages (especially adolescence) many of these characteristics are more intense and problematic. Personality disorders usually or often coexist with other mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety.
Individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) are often said to be living on a psychological edge. They experience instability in identity, moods, and relationships. These individuals intensely fear and frantically avoid real or imagined abandonment. Often experiencing despondency, rage and fury, self hatred, arrogance, anxiety and uncertainty, these individuals live in a world of “ups and downs.” Along with the above mentioned features, they also exhibit feelings of emptiness, clingy dependency and violent, often self-damaging impulses. They are often said to be living in perpetual anguish and some mental health professionals have described this condition as a form of “emotional hemophilia” – the individual lacks the psychological clotting mechanisms that enable them to control feelings in a healthy manner. Often they are described as being incapable of exhibiting such emotions as sadness, anger and worry in moderate proportions. Every reaction is extreme. Often impulsive to the point of being potentially self-damaging, these individuals may exhibit impulsivity in spending, and/or sexual behavior, substance abuse, binge eating and other reckless behaviors. They often engage in self-mutilating acts and threaten or attempt suicide. Their tendency to perceive the world around them in black-or-white, good-or-bad, and all-or-nothing terms often makes them difficult for other people to deal with. At times, they have problems that manifest themselves in such extreme ways as a temporary loss of feelings of reality and/or severe disassociative symptoms. Transient stress related paranoia is also experienced by those suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder.
Borderline Personality Disorder is diagnosed in about 2% of the general population and impairments from this disorder and risk of suicide are higher in young adult years. It is seen more frequently in women than men and is more common among first-degree biological relatives of those with the disorder. A high percent of these individuals have been physically or sexually abused early in life and many researchers in borderline personality feel that these individuals inherit a predisposition to poor mood regulation and impulse control.
Most Borderline individuals come from parenting backgrounds which include inconsistent and unpredictable parenting. However, these problems are not always obvious and require a thorough and in-depth assessment to reveal the familial roots of distress.
Next week I will continue my discussion of the Borderline Personality Disorder.
Harold H. LeCrone, Jr., Ph.D. Copyright 1999