THE FUSE

For more than half a century, borderline personality disorder (BPD) has survived an unusual amount of conceptual scrutiny. Initially regarded as a variant of schizophrenia, it has subsequently been reconceptualized by some as a mood disorder, a post-traumatic disorder, or an impulse-control disorder. Others have called for the diagnosis to be abandoned altogether. Each time, the syndrome has proved more durable than its critics expected (Gunderson, 2009). Today, however, the most serious threat to the diagnosis comes from a different direction: the movement toward dimensional models of personality disorder.