Discriminating borderline personality disorder from other Axis II disorders

f or Borderline Patients to assess 22 clinical features of 120 patients with borderline personality disorder and 1 03 control subjects with other axis II disorders. Four of the 22 features were common in but nondiscrimi-nating for borderline disorder, 1 1 were discriminating f or but nonspecific to borderline disorder, and seven were more specific to borderline disorder. The authors conclude that many clinical features thought to be in-dicative of borderline disorder are better viewed as personality disorder traits and that the seven more spe-cific features, alone or in conjunction with one an-other, may be particularly useful markers for border-line personality disorder. (Am J Psychiatry 1990; 147:161-167) N umerous studies have detailed the characteristic clinical features of borderline personality disor-den (1-29). Taken together, these studies have high-lighted four areas of phenomenology as particularly characteristic of borderline patients: 1) intense, dys-phoric affect, 2) transient cognitive difficulties, partic-ularly those of a paranoid and dissociative nature, 3) widespread impulsivity, particularly of a physically self-destructive nature, and 4) intense, unstable rela-tionships. Numerous studies have also shown that the clinical features of borderline personality disorder can be successfully discriminated from those of schizo