I’m hoping this is helpful but I wanted to state first of all that personally I don’t believe in giving great value to mental health diagnosis in providing support to people with issues related to mental health amongst whom I include myself. They can help with a formulation of mental health issues but their dangers are that they stereotype and cause the kind of distress people often speak about on Twitter following a BPD, or other, diagnoses. The distress & protest is seen moreover as a confirmatory symptom of BPD (hypersensitivity) by psychiatry:
In my personal view this is inevitable from a psychiatric position since that starts with a diagnosis that is meant to be an accurate, sufficient and necessary description of the base problem. I can’t see how that helps even if we also use terms like co-morbidity to show overlaps between conditions. That is why I veer towards anti-psychiatry as a corrective to psychiatry, at the very least.
However, the following, though a pretty thin summary (extracted from https://www.verywellmind.com/impulsive-behavior-and-bpd-425483#diagnosis ), does show the conditions that ought to have been discussed in the change of diagnosis from bipolar, characterising the impulsivity called ‘mania’ sometimes, to BPD. You need to see evidence of the use of the 2 tests here (underlined below), at the least.
Just to repeat. My own position is that these tests even if used are not helpful if used merely to characterise a BPD diagnosis. My belief is that mental health diagnosis must be downgraded to characterise the use of a descriptive language particular to psychiatry. I think it should be part of the case against psychiatry because of its reliance on descriptive stereotypes to describe ‘symptoms’.
Diagnosis
No single test can confirm whether your impulsive behavior is the result of BPD or some other condition. If BPD is suspected, a doctor will perform a psychological exam to determine whether the body of symptoms are consistent with BPD as outlined in the DSM-5.
To this end, a person must meet the two major diagnostic criteria for the disorder:
An impairment of personality functioning, either in terms of poor self-image and self-criticism or instability of goals, aspirations, values, or career plans
An impairment of interpersonal functioning, either in terms of a lack of empathy (due to negative attitudes and hypersensitivity) or the inability to sustain intimacy (due to mistrust, neediness, or the fear of abandonment)
Both criteria must be met to be diagnosed with BPD. It is a complicated process requiring clinical expertise and one that is prone to misdiagnosis. To avoid this, all other possible causes must be explored and excluded, both psychological and physical.1
Differential Diagnoses
Impulsive behaviors are not exclusive to BPD. They are also associated with bipolar mania, often in tandem with grandiosity and a flight of ideas. During an acute manic episode, a person will often act impulsivity with little thought of the consequence. Spending sprees and hypersexual behaviors are two common examples of impulsivity related to bipolar disorder (BD).5
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