Home — Mental health charity Platfform highlights harm and injustice 

Mental health charity Platfform highlights harm and injustice 

A new report from the mental health and social change charity Platfform suggests that the diagnosis of personality disorder is causing major harm and injustice to individuals, and can act as a ‘barrier to compassion.’   

It should not be necessary to flee ‘care’ to find safety

The findings of the report expose the current diagnosis of personality disorder and its treatment structure as ‘scientifically shaky and socially damaging’. It also found that the diagnosis itself can minimise previous trauma experiences and mask a hidden epidemic of abuse and neglect, preventing people from receiving appropriate treatment and support.  

In 1988, an article in the British Journal of Psychiatry reported that psychiatrists treated patients who had been given a diagnosis of personality disorder as ‘more difficult and less deserving of care compared to other patients’. 

Nearly thirty years later, this new report from Platfform draws on evidence that people who are given this label are still being told they are ‘wasting people’s time’, and calls for the urgent systemic reform of the use of the diagnosis of personality disorder to prevent continued major harm to individuals.  

Thirty people with lived experience of the diagnosis of personality disorder shared their stories for the Platfform report. Their evidence indicates that diagnosis itself can be problematic, and can negatively impact on people’s lives. 

Findings showed that the diagnosis takes little account of past traumatic experiences, and that associated care approaches and treatments can lead to traumatic and restrictive interventions including restraint, seclusion, and forced medication – all of which ‘pathologise distress’ and may challenge human rights laws and guidelines. 

Around three quarters of those diagnosed with a personality disorder are women, while 82% of those diagnosed have experienced significant childhood trauma. 

Collectively, this lived experience evidence suggests that being given the diagnosis of personality disorder reinforces systemic power imbalances that strip individuals of autonomy, credibility and humanity, and classifies past trauma as ‘attention seeking’, lies, ‘time-wasting’, or ‘being dramatic’.

As we spoke to individuals about their experiences, we learnt that for many, a diagnosis of personality disorder marks the devastating beginning of isolation, exclusion, and deepening distress. We saw that the treatment of people given this diagnosis often results in real harm, human rights breaches, and exclusion. “It’s time for that to change, with the focus on a human rights approach to mental health, working together across all professions and sectors. “This isn’t about blame. It’s about compassion, understanding, and building system-wide cultural change with lived experience at its heart, lighting the way to positive person-centred support. — Dr Jen Daffin, Community Clinical Psychologist and Director of Policy and Campaigns at Platfform
Some forms of ‘care’ teach you to doubt your own reality: a lesson that began the moment I was given a ‘borderline personality disorder’ diagnosis. I came to a slow realisation that help and harm can wear similar faces, as the diagnosis handed to me became an instruction manual that professionals used without my consent. “There is a particular harm in being named in a way that determines what or whether care is possible - where a single label turns every request for help into a judgement. The label of borderline personality disorder was used to silence me. It became a catalyst for stigma, discrimination, and what I can only describe as a sense of neglect, accompanied by a subtle conditioning process in which the message was clear: because I had a personality disorder, I was undeserving of care. — Jessica Matthews, who shared her lived experience for the report

Key findings of the report include:  

  • A diagnosis of personality disorder impacts the quality of health care offered, and increases the chance that individuals will be excluded from lifesaving care and support.  
  • The current system overlooks, minimises, or misunderstands histories of trauma, coercive control and systemic injustices, while context and life circumstances like chronic illness, disability, brain injury and personal losses are routinely ignored.  
  • The diagnosis of personality disorder can challenge human rights laws, as well as the Welsh Government’s guidance on reducing restrictive practices, In particular, current practice discriminates against a person’s rights to free and informed consent, privacy, liberty and security, personal integrity, and access to justice.

Read the The Hidden harm of the diagnosis of personality disorder report , Welsh language report here