BC child custody courts have become more aware of Parental Alienation Syndrome in BC custody and access cases and psychological issues such as Borderline Personality Disorder affecting British Columbia custody and acesss parents that can impact on their ability as custodial or access parents and as persons who need to cooperate as guardians to raise their children. It is important to note psychologists cannot find a person involved in a BC custody case has borderline personality disorder without concluding the person has 5/9 of the criteria listed below. It is also important that the label not be used by an expert to merely smear a custody or access parent but rather the psychologist must point out how the criteria diagnosed impact directly on the BC custody or acess parent’s ability to parent the children at issue in the BC child custody court case.
Borderline Personality Disorder DSM IV Criteria
A pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self-image, and affects, and marked impulsivity beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:
1. frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. Note: Do not include suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in Criterion 5.
2. a pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation.
3. identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self.
4. impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating). Note: Do not include suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in Criterion 5.
5. recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior
6. 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).
7. chronic feelings of emptiness
8. inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights)
9. transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms
If you suspect you are involved in a case involving alienation or borderline personality disorder or feel you are being unfairly accused of same contact Lorne MacLean immediately as time is of the essence in these cases.
