• Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. (not including suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in Criterion 5)


• A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation.


• Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self.


• Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating; [not including suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in Criterion 5]).


• Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior


• Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days)


• Chronic feelings of emptiness.


• Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights).


• Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms.
  
  DSM-IV-TR, 301.83.
  
  
  A commonly used mnemonic to remember the features of the borderline personality disorder is PRAISE:
  
  P - Paranoid ideas
  R - Relationship instability
  A - Angry outbursts, affective instability, abandonment fears
  I - Impulsive behaviour, identity disturbance
  S - Suicidal behaviour
  E - Emptiness

Labels: borderline personality disorder