Dr. Stanley Goldstein - Author and Psychologist

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.

Frequently after a horrifying multiple murder surfaces, news of the criminal's prior psychiatric diagnoses follows: that he had been diagnosed as "psychotic" or suffering from OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder") or ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) or another. Yet the treatment that followed each diagnosis was unsuccessful and the critical question remains: why?
Despite the complexity of human behavior this answer is simple: because naming a condition according to current diagnostic nomenclature (ICD-10), which is required for insurance payment, has taken the place of understanding the person for which study of their childhood is essential but usually absent.
To explain a person's behavior one must know the state of their ego capacities, which develop before the age of four- years, since these govern the ability to control thinking and behavior, to modulate mood, to distinguish reality from fantasy, and others, all comprising the Executive Function. But for decades, the false reductionist pseudo-neurological/chemical notion of what governs human psychology, as the existence of a "chemical imbalance" best treated with medication haa been followed, with only recent increased criticism of this spurious notion. As the crimes and suffering continue.

Parents and others often consider adolescence to normally be a period of strife. They believe that all teenagers have personal difficulties and will behave in odd, inexplicable ways but this is false.

The normal teenager has no greater difficulty coping with the tasks of adolescence than they did with the demands of earlier developmental periods. Then it  Read More