Elliott and Smith's Borderline Personality Disorder For Dummies (N2)

Borderline Personality Disorder For Dummies, by the psychologists Charles Elliott and Laura Smith, is a plain-language guide to a condition that is easy to misunderstand and easy to stigmatize. Among the symptoms they walk through, one is especially visible to everyone around the person. In their Dummies.com article on the symptoms of BPD they write, "Dramatic bouts of anger and rage frequently plague people with BPD." How quickly and how hotly a person moves to anger is, in the Big Five, one facet.

How hotly you move to anger is the Anger facet

The caveat first: borderline personality disorder is not a single Big Five trait, but a broad elevation across Neuroticism together with impulsivity and unstable relationships. This post takes the most visible thread. That thread is Anger (N2), under Neuroticism, how easily and intensely you flare to frustration and rage. A high scorer ignites fast and burns hot at small provocations; a low scorer stays even. The rages Elliott and Smith describe are that facet at an extreme, often triggered by a perceived slight or a fear of abandonment that would barely register for someone else. This post is about one facet the disorder touches, not a diagnosis, and it does not replace treatment.

It helps to see that the anger usually sits on top of something else. Underneath the outburst is often the emotional flooding of Vulnerability (N6), a person so overwhelmed that the rage is the only available release. Elliott and Smith frame the anger as a symptom to understand rather than a character flaw to condemn, which is what makes their plain-language approach useful for families and sufferers alike. Seeing the fear beneath the fury is the start of responding to it without escalating.

For a reader placing themselves or someone they love, N2 is a fair read on how short the fuse runs and how much damage the flares leave behind. High on it and Borderline Personality Disorder For Dummies offers an accessible map of where the anger comes from and how it is treated. Low on it and the book explains a volatility that can be bewildering from the outside. Where a person sits on Anger tells you how sensitive their temper is set, and we take the facet apart in Anger (N2).

Read the book: Borderline Personality Disorder For Dummies by Elliott and Smith.

See Where You Fall

Where do you actually fall? The 30-facet OCEAN personality test takes about 15 minutes and scores all five domains and the facets underneath them. Take the test

Research Citations