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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Politics
Natasha May

Is this actually PTSD? Clinicians divided over redefining borderline personality disorder

Dr Eveline Mu and Prof Jayashri Kulkarni in front of an artwork
Dr Eveline Mu, left, and Prof Jayashri Kulkarni are running clinical trials in Melbourne for new drugs to target the neurochemistry they believe drives the symptoms of borderline personality disorder, which some experts prefer to call ‘complex post-traumatic stress disorder’. Photograph: Nadir Kinani/The Guardian

When Prof Andrew Chanen was a trainee psychiatrist in 1993, patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) who had self-harmed were “vilified” and “treated appallingly”.

“There was this myth that somehow they were indestructible,” he says. Despite what his teachers told him, “most were dead by the end of my training”.

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