Borderline Personality Disorder Issues of Etiology and Gender

The incidence of the borderline personality disorder is increasing among hospitalized psychiatric patients, particularly women. This article reviews the literature in terms of several important questions such as of prevalence and etiological concepts including cultural, familial, object relations and sexual abuse. Sex labeling in the assignment of the diagnosis was not substantiated although two research studies did validate differential gender assignment of DSM-III-R criteria.