Characteristics of Psychosis in Borderline Personality Disorder

Comparing a sample of 88 inpatients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) to inpatients with borderline traits, this paper addresses four hypotheses regarding the association between BPD and psychotic symptoms: (1) narrowly defined psychotic symptoms are rare in BPD; (2) broadly defined psychotic symptoms are often reported in BPD; (3) narrowly defined psychotic symptoms are due to concomitant disorders, and (4) psychotic symptoms may be factitious. Consecutive admissions to acute inpatient services were screened for borderline features and patients were examined using the Diagnostic Interview for Borderlines and the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia. The results generally supported the proposed explanations for the association between BPD and psychotic symptoms. Factitious psychotic symptoms were found in only 13% of the BPD sample.