DSM-IV specific criteria for Borderline Personality Disorder

A pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self-image, and affects, and marked impulsivity beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:

1) Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment (do not include suicidal or self-mutilating behaviour covered in Criterion 5)

2) A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation

3) Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self

4) Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating), (do not include suicidal or self-mutilating-behaviour covered in Criterion 5)

5) Recurrent suicidal behaviour, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behaviour;

6) Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days); 

7) Chronic feelings of emptiness;

8) Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights);

9) Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms;