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Trauma, Borderline Personality, and Self-harm Behaviors-Reply
Lucy Candib, MD
Family Health and Social Service Center Worcester, Mass
Arch Fam Med. 1995;4(12):1001-1002.
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| Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings. |
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In reply
The response of Sansone and colleagues to my Editorial reveals the deep rift between our approaches to survivors of physical and sexual trauma. While we agree that survivors shoulder an excessive burden of suffering, we disagree about what that suffering means and how clinicians should think about and treat survivors.
Sansone and colleagues' screened a population of women seeking annual gynecological exams with a psychiatric instrument designed to measure psychopathologic symptoms, looking at each woman's level of "borderline symproms." Not surprisingly, they found that women who had previously been victimized had a higher frequency of self-harm activities and a higher level of the identified symptoms. Their letter now adds that 22.4% of their sample achieve "a probable diagnosis of borderline personality." They advise referral for psychotherapy for such patients and recommend that clinicians separate the medical and psychological issues and redirect the psychological issues to a mental health professional.
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