Abstract

The Borderline Personality Disorder (BDP) is defined as “a pervasive pattern of instability which affects regulation, impulse control, interpersonal relationships, and self-image”. Bateman model & Fonagy model, being a connection between the psychoanalytic tradition – especially the attachment theories and the cognitive approach, identifies the inability to mentalize as a fundamental problem of borderline patients, which is meant as “the capacity to make sense of ourselves and others, implicitly and explicitly, in terms of subjective states and mental processes”. Due to the considerable number of empirical evidence on the connection between mentalization and attachment, the authors defined the obstacles related to interpersonal relationships, which represent the distinctive feature of patients with BDP and which give rise to their typical impulsive behaviours. Such behaviours can be selfinflicted by means of self-destructive acts and attempted suicide and other-directed by means of aggressiveness and violence.