Characteristics for Diagnosis of BPD

According to the American Psychiatric Association, sufferers must also exhibit five or more of the following symptoms:

• They intensely avoid feeling alone/abandoned
• They relate in an unstable way to others
• Their identities are poorly constructed; lack of stability in their own image and in the Self
• Extremely impulsive
• They threaten to harm themselves and inflict self-harm
• They’re emotionally unstable
• They feel permanently ’empty’
• Tend to lack control over their anger; they find it difficult to exercise their will over their emotions
• They may present paranoid ideas and dissociative symptoms