Borderline Personality

Feeling like a chameleon around others, having hot-and-cold relationships, experiencing sudden, rapid mood swings, and having recurrent thoughts about suicide could indicate a borderline personality style. Dr. Kleinman can help you make sense of these confusing feelings and situations and offers treatment options using highly effective, well-regarded methods. As a board-certified psychiatrist, Dr. Kleinman can help you address feelings of internal chaos and develop a calmer and more well-integrated frame of mind.

What is borderline personality disorder?

In general, a personality is the way your mind is organized around how you see yourself, how you see others, and how you understand the world to work. Borderline personality style is a particular way that the mind can be organized, and it has a broad spectrum of symptoms and severity. It is considered a maladaptive personality style that can emerge in individuals who may be genetically “wired” to have strong emotions but grow up in environments that are emotionally confusing and chaotic.

In this personality style, a person may lack any clarity about who they are or what they want in life. They may long for strong, loving relationships but worry that people will suddenly reject or leave them. This fear can generate intense emotions that change suddenly in response to internal or external cues. These shifting emotions often cause relationships to be stormy and chaotic. Intense emotions can lead to impulsive actions such as sexual indiscretion or severe intoxication. They can also lead to suicidal thoughts and gestures.

When these emotional and behavioral difficulties are causing major problems in multiple areas of a person’s life, the personality style may be classified as a disorder.

What are the symptoms of a borderline personality?

Common symptoms of a borderline personality style include:

• Sudden, intense mood swings that occur within moments to hours
• Fears of being abandoned or rejected by friends or loved ones
• Unstable or absent relationships
• Inability to keep sustained employment
• Feeling like a different person around different people
• Inability to experience a consistent self-identity
• Inability to set or follow through with personal goals
• Intense relationship anxiety that can become paranoia
• Episodes of impulsive or risky behaviors
• Substance abuse to manage internal distress
• Difficulty controlling anger, rage, or aggression
• Intense feelings of internal emptiness
• Suicidal thoughts and actions

These symptoms may not be recognized until early adulthood, but they may have been present for several years beforehand. In some cases, symptoms may gradually improve over the course of a person’s life, even without treatment. More commonly, however, symptoms only improve with treatment.

What are the risks for developing a borderline personality?

Risk factors for developing a borderline personality style include:

• Older family members with maladaptive personality styles
• History of traumatic childhood events
• History of emotional abuse or neglect
• Hostile family environment
• Exposure to unstable relationships
• Chronic familial stress – financial, medical, or interpersonal
• Family member with substance abuse problems
• Mismatch of parenting style between parents and child
• Neurologic system that responds quickly and strongly to emotional cues and is slow to return to baseline

These factors alone may not cause a person to develop a borderline personality. These risk factors along with a person’s unique biology, their way of thinking, and their general life circumstances may all contribute to the development of a borderline personality.

How does Dr. Kleinman diagnose a borderline personality?

Dr. Kleinman may diagnose a borderline personality after having an extensive discussion of your primary concerns, current symptoms, and general life circumstances. She conducts a full psychiatric evaluation which includes asking about any past symptoms, experiences in psychotherapy, and any past use of psychiatric medication. She also asks about your life history, family history, and lifestyle habits. She will share with you whether you have a milder maladaptive personality style or a full personality disorder and will customize a personalized treatment plan that’s best suited to your needs.

How does Dr. Kleinman treat a borderline personality?

Dr. Kleinman offers Transference-focused psychotherapy (TFP), which is an intensive, twice-weekly therapy that is an Evidence-Based Treatment for Borderline Personality Disorder. TFP was especially designed to help patients with Borderline Personality regardless of whether the personality pattern is more of a maladaptive style or is at the level of a full disorder.

TFP works by exploring the underlying forces that may be causing the maladaptive personality pattern in the first place. This includes exploring your sense of self and personal identity, reflecting on your experience of how the world works, and examining your patterns of interacting with and relating to other people. TFP is specially designed to help you observe patterns of relating to others as they occur between you and the therapist in the moment. If symptoms of anxiety or depression are present, Dr. Kleinman can offer medication to help manage these symptoms.

Additional therapies that are often effective for borderline personality disorder include dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), schema-focused therapy, mentalization-based therapy (MBT), and systems training for emotional predictability and problem-solving (STEPPS), among others.

Dr. Kleinman’s treatment approach can be helpful for people who have tried other treatments for Borderline Personality, but have only had limited improvement, or who have participated in PHP or IOP programs in the past but have not been able to sustain their improvement.

Dr. Kleinman tailors each treatment to your personalized needs and follows your progress closely to ensure meaningful improvement.

Request a consultation with Dr. Kleinman today.