It has come to my attention that in neither of my last posts about BPD did I specify the criteria used to determine if someone has BPD. So that will be the focus here.
Borderline personality disorder is recognized in DSM-5, a type of psychiatric illness guide used by psychiatrists to determine if someone can be diagnosed with an illness or not. There are nine criteria for BPD, and if someone is hindered by five or more of the criteria, they can be said to have BPD. These criteria are listed below:
1.) Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment.
2.) Unstable and intense interpersonal relationships, with marked shifts in attitudes toward others (from idealization to devaluation or from clinging dependency to isolation and avoidance), and prominent patterns of manipulation of others.
3.) Marked and persistent identity disturbance manifested by an unstable self-image or sense of self.
4.) Impulsiveness in at least two areas that are potentially self-destructive, e.g., substance abuse, sexual promiscuity, gambling, reckless driving, shoplifting, excessive spending, or overeating.
5.) Recurrent suicidal threats, gestures, or behavior, or self-mutilating behaviors.
6.) Affective instability due to marked reactivity of mood with severe episodic shifts to depression, irritability, or anxiety, usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days.
7.) Chronic feelings of emptiness.
8.) Inappropriate, intense anger, or lack of control of anger, e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights.
9.) Transient, stress-related paranoid thoughts or symptoms of severe dissociation.
These nine criteria can be grouped into four primary areas: Mood instability (criteria 1, 6, 7, and 8); Impulsivity and dangerous uncontrolled behavior (criteria 4 and 5); Interpersonal psychopathology (criteria 2 and 3); Distortions of thought and perception (criterion 9).
The term “borderline” has been used since the 1930s, but the condition itself was not clearly defined until the 1970s. It was in 1980 when the diagnosis was included in DSM-3 (DSM – Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders).
I get most of my specific information on BPD from a book I’m currently reading on it in particular. For those interested, this book is called “I Hate You — Don’t Leave Me”, by Jerold J. Kreisman, MD, and Hal Straus. I will do future posts about schizophrenia, for which I have another good book recommendation. For now, I will continue to focus on BPD, a complex personality disorder with a lot of stuff going on.
To be continued…
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