The Symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder Assessed in MSAD

This chapter describes the 24 symptoms of BPD assessed in this study. It also describes what each symptom may mean to a borderline patient and the best way for clinicians to handle these symptoms. Some of the symptoms studied are affective (depression and sorrow, anger and rage, anxiety and panic, feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, and worthlessness, and feelings of emptiness and loneliness), while others are cognitive (troubling but nonpsychotic problems, such as overvalued ideas of worthlessness and guilt, experiences of depersonalization and derealization, and nondelusional suspiciousness and ideas of reference; quasi-psychotic or psychotic-like symptoms [i.e., transitory, circumscribed, and somewhat reality-based delusions and hallucinations]). Others are impulsive (self-mutilation, suicide threats, suicide attempts), while yet others are interpersonal (manipulation, demandingness, entitlement, treatment regressions, special relationships, dependency and counter-dependency, distortions of the truth, sadomasochistic tendencies).