DEFINITION:
The phrase “borderline personality disorder (BPD)” refers to a category of mental illness characterized by a set of symptoms, including instability in mood, self-image, and interpersonal relationships.
To qualify as BPD, the instability must be long-standing in nature and rise to a level that causes serious distress to the patient or harms his or her personal or professional social relationships.
ETYMOLOGY:
The term “borderline personality disorder” was introduced into the literature by the Hungarian-born American psychiatrist Adolph Stern (1858–1958) in a paper published 1938.
The term “borderline,” meaning an intermediate position between two positions, was coined around 1907 by combining the components words “border” and “line.” “Border” derives, via Middle English and Middle French, from the Bavarian word bort, akin to Old English bord. The word “line”derives, via Middle English and Old French, from the Latin word linea, meaning a flaxen thread.
For the etymology of the term “personality,” see the Glossary entry, personality.
The application of the English word “disorder” to abnormal physical and mental conditions is attested from the sixteenth century. The word “disorder” is composed of the word “order” and the inseparable prefix “dis-.” The word “order” derives, via Middle French and Medieval Latin, from the classical Latin noun ordo, ordinis, meaning a series or order. The English privative prefix “dis-“ derives from the Latin prefix dis- with the same form, meaning “separately” or “apart.”
DISCUSSION:
BPD manifests in a variety of ways, including, notably, the following:
- Self-destructive behavior, such as gambling, overeating, or substance abuse
- Risky, thrill-seeking, or histrionic behavior, such as quarreling, fighting, self-mutilation, or threatening/attempting suicide
- Intense but unstable personal relationships
- Labile moods
- Uncontrollable outbursts of anger
- Doubts about aspects of the self, including personal loyalties, professional goals, body image, or sexual identity
- Chronic, though often transient, negative feelings, such as boredom, sadness, pointlessness, or emptiness
Most personality disorders were first described by European psychologists during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century. However, BPD was named and first described in 1938 by the American psychologist Adolph Stern.
Stern called personality types exhibiting the symptoms discussed above “borderline” because he considered them to be adjacent to, or “bordering on,” neurotic and psychotic personality types, while lacking important diagnostic criteria of—and so not fully belonging to—either of those two types.
Beginning in the early 1970s, John G. Gundersonundertook empirical studies of patients diagnosed as “borderline,” on the basis of which he developed a number of more-sophisticated theoretical models for use in the diagnosis and treatment of BPD.
Today, BPD is one of the most-often diagnosed of all the personality disorders.