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Patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD; known in ICD–10 (World Health Organization, 1992) as emotionally unstable personality disorder) pose some of the most difficult management problems facing the clinical psychiatrist. They frequently present in crisis, but are often difficult to engage in any form of treatment. Their behaviour causes considerable anxiety but their ambivalence about treatment often leaves professionals feeling frustrated and resentful. These feelings can all too easily be transformed into therapeutic nihilism. As well as being a significant problem in its own right, comorbid personality disturbance complicates the management of other psychiatric disorders and has a negative effect on their prognosis (Reich & Vasile, 1993).
Anthony P. Winston (Mon,) studied this question.