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alexandra_k said:


Though the term was around well before that. Has origins in both medical psychiatry and traditional psychoanalysis.

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As far as i am aware those who were originally dxed as ' borderline' were seen as having an illness that had a schizophrenic tinge to it and was seen as being at the borderline between neurosis and psychosis.
There were i believe several different terms used as well as 'borderline personality' such as Hoch and Polatin's(?) pseudoneurotic schizophrenia, ambulatory schizophrenia ,as if personality etc.

By current classification a number of those who fitted the then description for borderline/pseudoneurotic etc i believe would be classified as 'schizotypal'.

I believe that because of the way borderline and schizotypal were defined in the dsm 3(?) there was considerable diagnostic overlap between the two ie a sizeable number of people were seen as meeting the criteria for both diagnoses.

Definitions were then revised in an attempt to better delineate(? i hope that's the right word) the two disorders.

Nowadays schizotypal is seen as a 'schizophrenia spectrum' disorder whereas with 'borderline' the debate centres around how much it does or doesn't belong to the 'bipolar spectrum'.
The likes of Hagop Akiskal have pinned their colours quite firmly to the belief that borderline personality disorder belongs within the bipolar spectrum -( a rapid cycling/atypical variant of bipolar?) and have put their case quite eloquently and persuasively.

For example.

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi....x?cookieSet=1
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/457151
http://tinyurl.com/393at9

Perugi G, Akiskal HS: Are Bipolar II, Atypical Depression, and Borderline Personality overlapping manifestations of a common cyclothymic-sensitive diathesis?