Mental health experts and medical professionals are urging the health secretary to place an immediate ban on diagnosing children and young people in the UK with borderline personality disorder, also known as BPD.
An open letter led by former health minister Sir Norman Lamb and groups like the Royal College of Nursing, the British Psychological Society and the Royal College of General Practitioners has already received more than 1,000 verified signatures pleading: “Children should not be diagnosed with a personality disorder in the UK.”
The letter urges medical practitioners to “abandon” the label “personal disorder” altogether claiming that the “misleading” and “stigmatising” descriptions create more “harm and worse treatment” for patients while also leaving “traumatised children” believing “they have deficits in their personality”.
While the letter notes that up to 2% of the UK population meet the criteria for BPD, it claims mental health professionals “view labelling children with a personality disorder between abhorrent, unethical, harmful, dubious, but not least – controversial.”
Patients with BPD are often considered emotionally unstable or manipulative and experts claim the diagnosis is stigmatised within the minds of mental health staff to the extent that experts will ignore warning signs of self-harm or suicide as they believe the patient is simply making it up or seeking attention.
The letter cites some “lived experiences” of BPD patients receiving poor treatment due to their diagnosis such as “having self-harm wounds stitched without anesthetic and being denied physical health care”.
This is all despite the high suicide rate for people with BPD and the letter warns that placing this diagnosis on young people tells doctors “they have a flawed personality” rather than a severe mental illness formed by trauma.
The letter has been signed by countless senior medics, leading psychiatrists, psychotherapists and mental health nurses and carers highlighting that while the societal connotations around BPD have lessened over time, stigma in the medical field “has not noticeably declined over the past 25 years.”
Ahead of the election, the open letter is calling for a ban on diagnosing young people with BPD in the UK “until there is conclusive proof that this diagnosis does not harm children”.
It concludes: “We know many ways to help traumatised children and not one of them relies on those around them believing they have deficits in their personality.”
The DHSC was unable to comment due to the pre-election period.