Mindfulness and Borderline Personality Disorder Clinical Handbook of Mindfulness

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a severe personality disorder characterized by prominent and pervasive dysregulation of emotion, behavior, and cognition. Current diagnostic criteria for BPD include difficulties with interpersonal relationships, affective instability, problems with anger, destructive impulsive behaviors, frantic efforts to avoid abandonment, problems with self-identity, chronic feelings of emptiness, transient dissociative symptoms and/or paranoid ideation, and suicidal behaviors (American Psychiatric Association, 2000 ). In order for a diagnosis to be made, at least five of these nine criteria must be present beginning in early adulthood and lasting for several years.