RE: borderline personality disorder

Sean Draine (seandr@Exchange.Microsoft.com)
Tue, 06 Apr 1999 17:13:23 -0700

Hi Denis,

Borderline Personality Disorder and schizophrenia (which to my knowledge is
still called "schizophrenia") are unrelated. In a desparate attempt to
relate my post to the subject of this list, I'll point out that Marsha
Linehan, a psychologist at the University of Washington who suffers from
BPD, has developed a treatment program for it that borrows heavily from Zen
Buddhism, which in turn is a subject that pops up here and there in
Salinger's writing.

Quick facts: 75% of those diagnosed with BPD are women. 75% are victims of
physical or sexual abuse. 

DSM-IV defines BPD as follows:
A pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships,
self-image, and affects, and marked impulsivity beginning by early adulthood
and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the
following:  

1) Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. 

2) A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships
characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and
devaluation. This is called "splitting."  

3) Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or
sense of self.  

4) Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging
(e.g., spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating). 

5) Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating
behavior.  

6) Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense
episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and
only rarely more than a few days).  
Chronic feelings of emptiness.  

7) Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g.,
frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights).  

8) Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative
symptoms.  



-----Original Message-----
From: denis jonnes [mailto:djengltl@mbox.nc.kyushu-u.ac.jp]
Sent: Monday, April 05, 1999 8:48 PM
To: bananafish@lists.nyu.edu
Subject: borderline personality disorder


Happy birthday, John!--and thanks to you and Scottie for info and 
useful clarifications.  Another question:  What, according to DSM-IV,
are symptoms connected with "borderline personality disorder" (which I
assume  can be referred to as BPD)?--Is this another way of talking
about what used to be called "schizophrenia"--which Deleuze and Gattari,
once upon a time, told us was really not all that bad a thing to come
down with?  
	Am caught up with this as I have to give short talk on "Madness in
American Literature" at meeting of Kyushu American Literature Society
meeting next month--my brief being American postwar
fiction/drama/poetry,  where I'm beginning to feel we  get nothing
but.   Am wondering though whether term "madness" has any currency
within psychiatry/psychology today.

Denis Jonnes