mental health disorders
Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)
Diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder
A doctor's evaluation, based on standard psychiatric diagnostic criteria , 5th ed, Text Revision ( Classification and Diagnosis of Mental Illness ), the standard reference for psychiatric diagnosis from the American Psychiatric Association. For doctors to diagnose borderline personality disorder, people must have a history of unstable relationships, self-image, and mood, and act impulsively, as shown by at least 5 of the following: They make desperate efforts to avoid abandonment (actual or imagined). They have unstable, intense relationships that alternate between idealizing and devaluing the other person. They frequently change their self-image or sense of self. They act impulsively in at least 2 areas that could cause them harm (such as unsafe sex, binge eating, or reckless driving). They repeatedly engage in suicide-related behavior, including attempting or threatening to commit suicide and hurting themselves. They have rapid changes in mood, which last usually only a few hours and rarely more than a few days. They chronically feel empty. They become inappropriately and intensely angry or have problems controlling anger. They have temporary paranoid thoughts or severe dissociative symptoms (feeling unreal or detached from themselves), triggered by stress. Also, symptoms must have begun by early adulthood. 