Borderline Personality Disorder

People who have difficulty managing intense emotions, have unstable relationships and experience feelings of low self-worth and impulsive or self-harmful behavior may be suffering from borderline personality disorder.

Causes

It is unknown what causes borderline personality disorder, although it appears to run in families. Problems with chemicals that control moods in the brain may also be a contributing factor.

People with borderline personality disorder often have problems coping with anxiety or stress due to having a history of trauma and/or difficult relationships with family, friends or significant others.

Symptoms

During the course of treatment, our physicians may ask about and assess the following symptoms:

• Low self-worth or feeling empty inside
• Damaging, reckless behaviors such as substance abuse, impulsive spending, risky physical behavior, binge eating, dangerous driving
• Intense emotions and mood swings
• Extreme fear of being alone: either frantically attaching to those around you or rejecting others before they reject you
• Anger issues
• Inflicting harm to self, such as through cutting or burning

Treatment

Our multidisciplinary staff will formulate a treatment plan specifically designed for each patient.