Borderline personality disorder
Clinical and Cultural Perspectives

Anthropologist Rebecca Lester raises two perspectives that BPD can be viewed: a clinical perspective where BPD is a “dysfunction of personality”, and an academic perspective that views BPD as a “mechanism of social regulation”. Lester provides the perspective that BPD as a disorder of relationships and communication; that a person with BPD lacks the communication skills and knowledge to interact effectively with others within their society and culture given their life experience. Lester provides the metaphor of the particle-wave duality in quantum physics when dealing with the distinction between cultural and clinical perspectives of BPD. Like the particle-wave-duality, when asking particle-like questions you will get particle-like answers; and if you ask wave-like questions you will get wave-like answers. Lester argues the same applies to BPD; if you ask culturally based questions about the presence of BPD you will get culturally based answers, if you ask clinical personality-based questions it will reinforce personality-based perspectives. Lester advised both perspectives are valid and should work in tandem to provide a greater understanding of BPD culturally and for the individual.
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