Individuals who have borderline personality disorder (BPD) typically have very negative emotions and dread abandonment. They often engage in acts that lead others to feel outraged. These acts might including viciously insulting another in words or deed, brutally critizising the other person, arguing angrily with the other, or having an anger outburst for little or no apparent reason. Other forms of mistreatment also occur. 

What leads to this socially disasterous behavior?

Here are several possiilities that could be the focus of treatment for the person with BPD. An individual with BPD may be:

1. Seeking distraction to avoid the suffering of BPD
2. Acting out due to severe negative emotions, including rage
3. Testing whether others will abandon him or her
4. Pre-emptively breaking with a person to avoid any risk of being abandoned
5. Seeking satisfaction by exerting power over another or making another person suffer
6. Acting impulsively
7. Failing to exert behavioral self-control
8. Defending himself or herself from a real or imagined attack.

Each of these possibilities has a more adaptive alternative behavior that an individual with BPD could adopt, with training. 

Photo by Julien L on Unsplash