Patient with borderline personality disorder

Every family practice includes people who are difficult to manage. Persons with a borderline personality disorder can be the most difficult of all. They will trust no one, and consequently few, if any, others will be able to tolerate their profoundly difficult interpersonal communication style. These patients will present to their family physician more and more often with a variety of somatic and emotional symptoms. They will demand, either verbally or silently, that these symptoms be relieved immediately. This increasing demand for immediate response may eventually cause the physician to reject the patient. An understanding of this condition and how it develops in infancy may enable the physician to help the patient. A family physician who can set appropriate limits to the patient's demands may slowly convince the patient that he can trust and not be hurt.