Film
Films attempting to depict characters with the disorder include A Thin Line Between Love and Hate (1996), Gia (1998), Filth (2013), Fatal Attraction (1987), The Crush (1993), Mad Love (1995), Malicious (1995), Interiors (1978), The Cable Guy (1996), Mr. Nobody (2009), Moksha (2001), Margot at the Wedding (2007), Cracks (2009), Welcome to Me (2014), and Tamasha (2015).Robert O. Friedel has suggested that the behavior of Theresa Dunn, the leading character of Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1975) is consistent with a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder.The films Play Misty for Me (1971) and Girl, Interrupted (1999, based on the memoir of the same name) both suggest the emotional instability of the disorder.The film Single White Female (1992), like the first example, also suggests characteristics, some of which are actually atypical of the disorder: the character Hedy had markedly disturbed sense of identity and reacts drastically to abandonment. : 235 Multiple commenters have noted that Clementine in Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind (2004) shows classic borderline personality disorder behavior.In a review of the film Shame (2011) for the British journal The Art of Psychiatry, another psychiatrist, Abby Seltzer, praises Carey Mulligans portrayal of a character with the disorder even though it is never mentioned onscreen.Psychiatrists Eric Bui and Rachel Rodgers argue that the Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader character in the Star Wars films meets six of the nine diagnostic criteria; Bui also found Anakin a useful example to explain BPD to medical students. In particular, Bui points to the characters abandonment issues, uncertainty over his identity, and dissociative episodes.
Additionally, women with BPD who reported a previous history of neglect by a female caregiver or abuse by a male caregiver were significantly more likely to have experienced sexual abuse by a non-caregiver.It has been suggested that children who experience chronic early maltreatment and attachment difficulties may go on to develop borderline personality disorder. Writing in the psychoanalytic tradition, Otto Kernberg argues that a childs failure to achieve the developmental task of psychic clarification of self and other and failure to overcome splitting might increase the risk of developing a borderline personality. Neurological patterns
The intensity and reactivity of a persons negative affectivity, or tendency to feel negative emotions, predicts BPD symptoms more strongly than does childhood sexual abuse. This finding, differences in brain structure (see Brain abnormalities), and the fact that some patients with BPD do not report a traumatic history suggest that BPD is distinct from the post-traumatic stress disorder which frequently accompanies it. Thus, researchers examine developmental causes in addition to childhood trauma. Research published in January 2013 by Anthony Ruocco at the University of Toronto has highlighted two patterns of brain activity that may underlie the dysregulation of emotion indicated in this disorder: (1) increased activity in the brain circuits responsible for the experience of heightened emotional pain, coupled with (2) reduced activation of the brain circuits that normally regulate or suppress these generated painful emotions.