Mental health Many symptoms of unstable personality disorder are common in adolescents and young adults – “Suicide is also common”

Unstable up to 2-4% of adults aged 20-25 meet the criteria for personality disorder. However, the criteria are met by less than one percent of the entire population, according to the University of Turku.

Unstable personality disorder refers to a situation in which a person has major problems with the regulation of emotions and behavior.

In adolescence, this is common even without personality disorders, until regulation develops with age and the management of stimuli improves, says a professor of psychiatry and a specialist in psychiatry at the University of Turku. Jyrki Korkeila.

“Unlike the usual turmoil of youth, unstable personality disorder is persistent and long-lasting, and is not limited to certain situations or interactions. Self-destruction is also typical. The effervescence of adolescence remains in adolescence, while in personality disorder the symptoms may ease but do not disappear completely, ”Korkeila describes.

Unstable many inherited or environmental factors, such as traumatic childhood experiences, predispose to personality disorder.

The disorder is most often diagnosed around the age of 20.

Director of the Helsinki and Uusimaa Hospital District and psychotherapist Jan-Henry Stenbergin according to him, many other mental disorders also break out at this age, and the explanation is clear: it is the young adult who is leaving his or her childhood home that is more active than ever before, and the brain structures related to this activity are still partially immature.

“You should know what you want to do when you grow up and move towards it with determination, while managing your finances and finances, among other things. In this stressful situation, all sorts of instability-related symptoms are exacerbated, ”says Stenberg.

Problems with the regulation of emotions and behavior can manifest themselves, for example, in the reckless use of money or drugs or in contentious interpersonal relationships.

Korkeilan according to, health care professionals recognize unstable personality disorder for the most part well, although certain things can make it difficult to identify. The disorder has many similarities to ADHD and mild bipolar disorder.

Unstable personality disorder can also manifest itself through physical symptoms: a large proportion of patients suffer from a wide range of symptoms and use a wide range of health care services.

“The most severe disorders are easy to identify: there is, for example, repeated self-harm or reckless drug use,” says Korkeila.

Sometimes unstable personality disorder is not recognized until over the age of thirty, when it is noticed that the patient has had a wide range of problems in their lifetime.

The disorder may also go unrecognized from the background of, for example, an eating disorder, depression or anxiety. Typical drop-outs, unemployment or career breaks are typical.

According to Stenberg, in an unstable personality disorder, the symptoms are so deeply ingrained that a person may not perceive them as a disorder. Therefore, diagnosis requires subtlety.

“It is important to tell the patient, with appreciation, respect and integration of different symptoms, that this could be a broader disorder that produces such individual symptoms, and that it may be preferable to treat this underlying whole. In the end, patients can be relieved of the diagnosis. ”

Unstable the treatment options for personality disorder are good. The primary forms of treatment are various psychotherapies, the most common of which is currently dialectical behavioral therapy. Treatment begins with psychoeducation, in which the patient carefully examines what the disorder is about and how it has manifested in his or her life, says Stenberg.

“Other proven therapies are mentalization therapy,” schematic therapy, and transfer-centered psychotherapy.

The goal of all of these therapies is to help the patient understand their feelings and inner experience. Once the emotions are clear, it is possible to go through alternative ways of responding emotionally, quickly.

According to Stenberg, for example, dialectical behavior therapy has a clear structure. Life-threatening behaviors, such as self-harm, are addressed first, followed by treatment-impairing behaviors. The third is the behavior that impairs the quality of life, and we get to learn, for example, emotional skills and stability.

“Increasingly, all of these tools become available,” we move on to reduce suffering and learn to express the usual emotional experience: practice, among other things, anxiety-tolerance and interaction skills.

According to Jyrki Korkeila, more severe forms of unstable personality disorder can also be treated with medication.