Borderline personality disorder: A review of data on DSM-III-R descriptions

This paper reviews the available literature and data that bear on the question whether the DSM-III-R account of borderline personality disorder (BPD) should undergo change for DSM-IV. The emphasis is on empirical evidence assembled since the introduction of this category in DSM-III, but the review necessarily moves into earlier literature that gave rise to the disorder's recognition and into the nonempirical resources offered by the accumulated expertise of advisors. Readers are invited to consider, alongside the DSM-IV Work Group, how to reconcile the value of sustaining a definition of BPD that has now received partial validation with the value of modifications that might better reflect the BPD construct.