On May 24, 2:16 am, Kurt Ullman  wrote:
> Darth Vader suffered from borderline personality disorder, experts
> report.  WebMD (5/22, Hitti) reported, "Anakin Skywalker, the Star Wars
> character who became Darth Vader, had borderline personality disorder,
> psychiatrists report. The news comes not from a galaxy far, far away,
> but from San Diego, where the American Psychiatric Association (APA) is
> holding its 160th annual meeting." Experts "from the psychiatric
> department at France's University Hospital of Toulouse told the APA's
> annual meeting that Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader could 'clearly' be
> diagnosed with borderline personality disorder." WebMD noted that the
> French psychiatrists, including Laurent Schmitt, M.D., "based their
> diagnosis on original Star Wars film scripts."

I haven't got the ICD-10 (which tends to be better scientifically, as
it's not biased by insurance funding issues and the like in the US) in
front of me, but here are the diagnostic criteria from the DSM-IV-TR:

301.83 Borderline Personality Disorder (page 710)

A pervasive pattern of instability in interpersonal relationships,
self-image, and affects, and marked impulsivity beginning by early
adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five
(or more) of the following:

(1) frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment [Not really
-- he did take some desperate actions to avoid Padme's death but
avoidance of abandonment isn't a generalised pattern for him]

(2) a pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships
characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and
devaluation [not particularly]

(3) identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-
image or sense of self [not really]

(4) impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-
damaging (e.g. spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge
eating) [no]

(5) recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-
mutilating behavior [no]

(6) affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g.
intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a
few hours and only rarely more than a few days) [not really]

(7) chronic feelings of emptiness [probably -- but that's what you get
when you kill many of your former friends and allies to save your
relationship partner and then she dies anyway, and you try to escape
your emptiness by relishing in taking over the galaxy as the
apprentice of the con artist who tricked you into it]

(8) inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g.
frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical
fights) [Possibly, although his use of aggression tended to be
controlled and instrumental rather than impulsive]

(9) transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative
symptoms [not really -- he thought people were out to get him, but
accurately so]

Overall, he only seems to meet up to two of the criteria when you need
5/9 to qualify for a diagnosis, and he doesn't fit with the central
theme of the disorder, so I'm a little confused as to why they went
for Borderline Personality Disorder. If anything, I'd be more inclined
to consider Narcissistic Personality Disorder, or/and something along
the lines of Antisocial Personality Disorder // Psychopathy // callous-
unemotional traits.

Matthew
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