Clinical Diagnosis of Borderline Personality: Examination of Professional Differences

We examined the influence of clinicians' professional affiliations on the assignment of DSM-III/DSM-III-R borderline personality disorder to clients. Practicing psychologists and psychiatrists provided data on patients who had been clinically diagnosed as manifesting personality disorder. Clinicians also were asked to indicate those features that best described their clients' symptomatology, using a checklist of the Axis II criteria that yielded a diagnosis based on DSM-III criteria. Results indicated that minimal differences existed between the two clinician groups in their diagnoses of borderline personality disorder and that both professional groups relied on the criteria specified in DSM-III. However, several differences in the professionals' weightings of specific features were found.