Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a mental disorder characterized by disturbed and unstable interpersonal relationships and self-image, along with impulsive, reckless, and often self-destructive behavior.

Description

Individuals with BPD have a history of unstable interpersonal relationships. They have difficulty interpreting reality and view significant people in their lives as either completely flawless or extremely unfair and uncaring (a phenomenon known as "splitting"). These alternating feelings of idealization and devaluation are the hallmark feature of borderline personality disorder. Because borderline patients set up such excessive and unrealistic expectations for others, they are inevitably disappointed when their expectations aren't realized.

The term "borderline" was originally used by psychologi  t Adolf Stern in the 1930s to describe patients whose condition bordered somewhere between psychosis and neurosis. It has also been used to describe the borderline states of consciousness these patients sometimes feel when they experience dissociative symptoms (a feeling of disconnection from oneself).

Causes

Adults with borderline personalities often have a history of significant childhood traumas such as emotional, physical, and/or sexual abuse and parental neglector loss. Feelings of inadequacy and self-loathing that arise from these situations may be key in developing the borderline personality. It has also been theorized that these patients try to compensate for the care they were denied in childhood through the idealized demands they now make on themselves and on others as adults. Some studies suggests that this disorder is associated with mood or impulse control problems, others implicate malfunctioning neurotransmitters(the chemicals that send messages to nerve cells). The disorder has a genetic correlation since it occurs more commonly among first-degree relatives.

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