What is the "Border"? Borderline Personality Disorder: through the investigation of Ms. Susanna Kaysen in the movie "Girl, Interrupted"

「境界」とは何か？境界性人格障害：映画"17歳のカルテ"に診るスザンナの病理を通して

Satoki Umezawa

After the brief description of case introduction, demographic data and diagnostic criteria of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), twenty one scenes from the nonfictional film "Girl, Interrupted" were extracted for scrutiny. The movie is based on the real experience of Ms. Susanna Kaysen who was diagnosed as borderline personality disorder and spent a year and a half in a psychiatric hospital. Following the psychological investigation of Susanna's experience, her diagnosis was made afresh, and her recovery process was explained in a psychopathological manner, to suggest five causes of BPD, which are; defection in the sense of identity, change of relationship with the environment, gender perception of a society, sense of controllability in parents, and societal change toward consumerism, less paternal authority, and fewer children. Also, along with implying the importance of Japanese Amae in the deeper understanding of BPD symptoms, three new definitions of the historically complicated concept of the term "border" have been proposed; that is, the border between the world of ideal and reality, the border between changing values of society, and the border between meta-communication and verbal communication.