Borderline Personality Disorder

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 25th Mar 2019

Last week’s article looked at antisocial personality disorder (APD) and violence. This week’s article is about another personality that is associated with violence: borderline personality disorder (BPD). In the UK, when the two are comorbid/present together it is likely that a medical-legal diagnosis of dangerous and severe personality disorder (DSPD), will be made e.g. 78% of criminals undergoing treatment for DSPD in the UK, have APD+BPD, making it the most common type/form of DSPD. Whilst both those with APD, and BPD, have a tendency to become aggressive and violent, their motivations for doing so, and the way they use violence,...Click To Read More

Psychopathy & Violence

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 18th Mar 2019

This is the first of two articles, that will look at two personality disorders which are associated with violent behavior and violent offending: Psychopathy/Antisocial Personality Disorder (APD) and Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). Although the DSM-V, doesn’t talk specifically about psychopathy, it recognizes it as sub-type of Anti-Social Personality Disorder, so whilst the DSM recognizes psychopathy as a type of this disorder the two are not synonymous. Whilst true psychopaths only make up 2-3% of the population – and this appears to be universal throughout both developed and developing countries – they are estimated to account for around 50% of all...Click To Read More

Grappling with Knives

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 11th Mar 2019

Not all knife attacks are or look the same. There is a big difference between an active killer running around a subway station, looking to stab as many people as possible and an individual (or group) engaged in recreational violence, looking to target an individual for their own entertainment purposes. The way an individual who feels threatened and/or disrespected may posture, presenting and showing the knife, before attacking with it, may be different to the way somebody in a state of psychosis uses a knife, etc. Range, distance, relative body positioning (is the attacker coming from the front, side or...Click To Read More

Communication Content

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 4th Mar 2019

Conflicts often occur due to a person’s misperceptions concerning our intentions e.g. they expect us to behave in a certain way, believe that we perceive them in a certain way, etc. Somebody who has become emotional/aggressive with us, will often end up writing a script that second guesses, how we will respond and react to them. Sometimes this will be based on past experiences e.g. they are so used to people not listening to them, taking them seriously, etc., that they’ll assume that this is how we will respond, and treat them. It is also worth noting that we may...Click To Read More