People with Borderline Personality Disorder experience such violent and frightening mood swings that they often fear for their sanity. They can be euphoric one moment, despairing and depressed the next. They show symptoms such as: a shaky sense of identity; sudden violent outbursts; oversensitivity to real or imagined rejection; brief, turbulent love affairs; frequent periods of intense depression; eating disorders, drug abuse, and other self-destructive tendencies; an irrational fear of abandonment and an inability to be alone. For years BPD was difficult to describe, diagnose, and treat. But now, for the first time, Dr. Jerold J. Kreisman and health writer Hal Straus offer much-needed professional advice, helping victims and their families to understand and cope with this troubling, shockingly widespread affliction.