Dr. Stanley Goldstein - Author and Psychologist

Like all mental health disorders, those suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder exhibit symptoms of varying severity depending on their capacity for relationships. Those closest to a psychotic disorder are openly angry, having given up their desire for relationships. Less severe are those that vacillate between moving toward and away from others. The next group lack a secure "sense of self" or sense of who they are, and mold their behavior according to what others expect; while the least disturbed group continually seek a symbiotic relationship with a mothering figure, having lacked a "good-enough" parenting figure early in life. This continuum of pathology reflects the deficient ability to tolerate intimacy, a contining modulation of closeness by moving toward and away from others.

For some illogical reason, perhaps as a reaction to poor clinical practice or popular movies, some mental health disorders have become viewed as benefit rather than illness. Among these is Borderline Personality Disorder, a serious psychological illness describing severe, fixed weakness of the basic ego capacities governing thinking, behavior, affect, and more, deriving from faulty developmental experiences, principally the lack of a "good-enough" parenting during the early years when basic ego capacities form. A theoretical concept, "Elements of a Borderline Psychotic Psychostructural Organization," which is far more common than BPD, is a continuum of weaknesses of one or more ego capacities and far less severe. It is often mis-diagnosed for BPD particularly when substance abuse is present. Sadly, inadequate child development knowledge is the rule for both the general public and many clinicians.