Posted by Dinah on March 20, 2004, at 14:38:42
In reply to I think I'm with Dinah, posted by Racer on March 20, 2004, at 1:08:24
I've read before the sex differences between antisocial and borderline personality disorder, and the idea that they are both manifestations of the same disorder, but I'm not really convinced of that. I think there may be some people with both disorders. But I always think of antisocial personality disorder as being linked to lack of empathy for others, though I might be confusing it with psychopathy. And I just don't see any linkage between lack of empathy and borderline personality disorder.
Here's a really good article about not only antisocial personality disorder and psychopathy, but also about the inherent weaknesses in the current Axis II categories, which are based more on easily quantifiable behavior characteristics rather than harder to quantify personality characteristics.
http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/p960239.html
I'm also not sure whether the fact that doctors who have previously diagnosed MPD patients are more likely to diagnose it again is in any way related to whether or not their patients are more likely to have multiple personality disorder (or DID in today's terminology). It may be totally unrelated. If you aren't willing to accept the existance of MPD and a patient who has it comes to you, you're not going to diagnose it. And if your treatment technique for dealing with emerging ego states is to ignore them, refuse to talk to them, etc. and then your patients no longer present with different ego states, does this mean that the ego states where a fiction to begin with? I don't really know that you can conclude that.
If I go to the doctor and tell him I have a pain in my stomach. And if that doctor checks everything out and tells me there isn't anything wrong with my stomach, and he doesn't want to hear any more about the pain in my stomach, I'm not likely to tell that doctor about the pain in my stomach again. Especially if he repeats it a few times or especially adamant. But that doesn't mean I don't really have a pain in my stomach.
So I don't think you can determine causality unless you examine both the doctors who do diagnose MPD and those who don't diagnose MPD. Because never having seen a case of MPD might say as much about a doctor as having seen a hundred cases does.
poster:Dinah
thread:326187
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040313/msgs/326446.html