Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a diagnosis given to ten percent of all those seen in outpatient mental health facilities and twenty percent of those seen in inpatient psychiatric units. This is a significant number of people in the Western world. However, many of the core concepts and symptoms that underlie this diagnosis are questionable. Many of the attitudes and actions of carers are based on assumptions about those with BPD that cry out for analysis, with both cultural and gender norms interacting with clinical diagnosis and treatment, to the detriment of both carers and patients.
This book considers how we diagnose BPD, looking at the key constructs: idendity disturbance, inappropriate or excessive anger, unstable relationships, impulsivity, self-injurious behaviour, and manipulativity. It starts by looking at the cultural and gender assumptions and norms behind BPD, drawing upon philosophical, clinical, anthropological, and sociological literature. Combining philosophical analysis with clinical experience and patients' writings, it clarifies the constructs so that the reader can understand the messiness and complexity that frames this diagnosis and treatment. After examining the current state of these constructs and their effects on carer/patient interactions. Part II sees an application of virtue theory to therapeutic treatment with BPD patients. It looks at three virtues that are particularly important for clinicians and other carers to cultivate when working with BPD patients: trustworthiness; the virtue of giving uptake, and empathy. It argues that, in their absence, not only are clinicians' attitudes harmful to patients, but also that the status of the diagnosis is actually compromised.
Mapping the Edges and the In-Between presents a compelling argument that Borderline Personality Disorder needs to be approached in a new light--one that will benefit patients.

What is defiance, and when does defiant behaviour impede one's ability to aim at flourishing? People who are defiant can present perplexing challenges etiologically, diagnostically, and responsively. But in order to understand accurately when defiant behaviour is good, or bad, or neither (when it emerges out of mental illness), a fresh perspective on defiance is needed. This book offers a nuanced and complex look at defiance, taking seriously issues of dysfunction while also attending to social contexts in which defiant behaviour may arise. Those living in adverse conditions such as oppression, systematic disadvantages, and disability may act defiantly for good reasons. This perspective places defiance squarely within the moral domain; thus, it should not be assumed that when professionals come across defiant behaviour, it is a sign of mental dysfunction. Potter argues that defiance sometimes is a virtue, meaning that a disposition to be ready to be defiant when the situation calls for it is part of living a life with a realistic understanding of the aim of flourishing and its limits in our everyday world. Her work also offers theoretical work on problems in knowing that can impede understanding and responsiveness to those who are, or seem to be, defiant. Clinicians, teachers, social workers, nurses, and others working in helping professions are invited to engage in different ways with defiance so as to better understand and respond to people who express that defiance. Case studies, a framework for differentiating different forms of defiance, a realistic picture of phronesis-practical reasoning-and an explanation of how to give uptake well are some of the topics covered. The voices of service users strengthen the author's claims that defiance that is grounded in phronesis is just as much a part of moral life for those living with mental disabilities as for anyone else.

This work examines the concept of trust in the light of virtue theory, and takes our responsibility to be trustworthy as central. Rather than thinking of trust as risk-taking, Potter views it as equally a matter of responsibility-taking. How Can I Be Trusted? illustrates that relations of trust are never independent from considerations of power, and that the trustee has a moral obligation not to exploit the vulnerability of the trusting person. Asking ourselves what we can do to be trustworthy allows us to move beyond adversarial trust relationships and toward a more democratic, just, and peaceful society.