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Common Misconceptions About Borderline Personality Disorder
The thriller Fatal Attraction, triggered a lot of discussion about Borderline Personality Disorder. Unfortunately, it also led to a great deal of misunderstandings about the disorder as well.
Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a condition that many people are fascinated by. This, in part, was the result of the thriller, Fatal Attraction, which called attention to the disorder and generated much discussion. Many characteristics of Glenn Close’s character, Alex, are mostly accurate in regards to BPD. Unfortunately, at the same time, those involved with the movie created a character that would function as the antagonist who was responsible for the terror elements in the plot.
This development of the Alex character meant taking liberties with how she was presented, compared to the way BPD actually manifests. In particular, while the unstable nature of the disorder was well depicted, the vulnerability that those with this disorder experience was largely left out, as was her life history that would have shaped the biological predisposition that underlies this disorder.
Borderline Personality Disorder was first described in 1938 by Adolf Stern, who coined the term for…
