Borderline Personality Disorder

Mallory and Sonia

Test

1. When your close friend unexpectedly calls off a meeting with you, would you bear an immediate hatred for her/him?

2. Do you have difficulties tolerating

loneliness?

Test

• 3. Feel insecure with relationships with

others.

• 4. Do you have dramatic mood from

happiness to melancholy?

• 5. Do you have tendency of self-injuries?

Borderline Personality Disorder:

• Psych Central: “a pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self-image, and affects, and marked impulsivity that begins by early adulthood and is present in a variety of contexts.”

Symptoms:

• unstable interpersonal relationships• identity disturbance • emotional instability• chronic feelings of emptiness• tendency to commit suicide

If we put the symptoms into the daily lives……

Causes

• Environmental factor:

one’s childhood experience

Marsha Linehan: “BPD is caused by an interaction between biological factors and an "emotionally invalidating" childhood environment. ”

• Biological and genetic causes:

1. serotonin (a natural chemical in the brain)

2.have more activation of the limbic system, an area in the brain that controls fear, anger, and aggression

Treatments

• Psychotherapy:

help patients cope with their illness

• Medication:

low doses of antipsychotic drugs

• Self-help:

encourage patients to gain additional social support