Depression and panic in patients with borderline personality disorder.

The borderline personality concept has evolved from a term used to describe a neuroticpsychotic borderland (Knight 1963), or an almost but-not-quite schizophrenic process (Hock and Polatin 1949), to a more precise and operationally defined syndrome (American Psychiatric Association, 1980; Gunderson 1982). Affective changes are a major and consistent clinical feature in most descriptions of borderline personality disorders (BPD). Major depressive disorder (MDD) or other DSM-III Axis I diagnoses, including panic disorder, may be present in a significant number of BPD patients, perhaps in the majority (Carroll et al. 1980; Akiskal 1981; Stone 1981; Pope et al. 1983). Thus, the appropriate treatment of patients with combined Axis I (MDD) and Axis II (BPD) pathology would require psychotropic medications. Pope et al. (1983) reported that BPD patients who had associated MDD and were treated with psychotropic medications had better outcome measures when interviewed 4-7 years after the index hospitalization. Agoraphobia and panic disorder also have been reported as being occasionally associated