BPD patients may occasionally show apparent remission or normalcy in traits such as neuroticism, while hysteric or depressive personality disordered-patients will manifest these traits more consistently. This also highlights the level of 'hope' one should have about what is seen as an improving sign during treatment. While a marked reduction in neuroticism might be a sign of responsiveness in a depressive personality type, in a BPD patient it may merely be another manifestation of the illness, part of the BPD cycle, of finding someone or someone to fixate upon to ease the patient's lack of a sense of core identity. In particular, neuroticism and conscientiousness "showed greater mean-level change, with neuroticism declining faster and conscientiousness increasing faster, in the BPD group" as compared with other traits in the FFM (Hopwood 2009, p.806).

BPD's controversial nature as a diagnosis is not seriously disputed by the authors, and opponents of the diagnosis...
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