Borderline Personality Disorder affects an estimated five million Americans. Patients with BPD make up 20 percent of psychiatric inpatients and 10 percent of psychiatric outpatients (American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2000). The symptoms of borderline patients are similar to those for which most people seek psychiatric help: depression, mood swings, the use and abuse of drugs and alcohol as a means of trying to feel better; obsessions, phobias, feelings of emptiness and loneliness, inability to tolerate being alone, problems about eating.
There are four important objectives in underst…
