Am J Psychiatry 1986; 143:998-1003
Copyright © 1986 by American Psychiatric Association
An examination of the borderline diagnosis in children
DA Greenman, JG Gunderson, M Cane and PR Saltzman
A retrospective study of 86 children aged 6-12 years who had been
hospitalized for psychiatric reasons revealed that adult criteria for
borderline personality disorder could identify a group of children with
many of the features attributed in the literature to the borderline child.
The relative paucity of significant differences between the children
identified as borderline and those identified as nonborderline raises
questions about the validity and utility of the term. Further work is
necessary to clarify the meaning of a vulnerability to psychotic regression
in the disturbed child and the relation of such a vulnerability to the
adult borderline personality disorder.
