Which feature most reliably separates histrionic personality disorder from borderline personality disorder?

• A Identity disturbance with chronic emptiness and recurrent self-harm ✓
• B Shallow, rapidly shifting emotions expressed dramatically
• C Attention-seeking and exaggerated emotional display
• D Use of seductive behaviour to draw interest

Explanation

Both disorders show dramatic emotionality, attention-seeking, and seductiveness, so those shared features cannot discriminate. Borderline personality disorder is distinguished by identity disturbance, chronic emptiness, frantic abandonment avoidance, and recurrent suicidal or self-injurious behaviour, none of which are criteria for histrionic personality disorder. In histrionic disorder the relationships are shallow and theatrical but the sense of self remains comparatively stable.

Reference: Kaplan and Sadock's Synopsis of Psychiatry, 12th ed.

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