PERSONALITY DISORDER DISEASE OF THE '90S.(LIFE & LEISURE)

Byline: RICK KARLIN Staff writer

It's been recognized since the 1930s, but therapists are now calling it a disease of the '90s.

Mental health professionals sometimes describe borderline personality disorders as a ``Fatal Attraction'' syndrome, named for the film in which a character played by actress Glenn Close goes on a suicidal and murderous rampage after being spurned by a lover. Close's character, they say, was an extreme but eerily accurate portrayal of how someone with a borderline personality disorder can behave.

The term borderline describes the patient as being on the border between neurosis and psychosis, the result of an extreme and even irrational fear of abandonment.

Despite the fact that more and more people are being diagnosed with this condition, the term borderline personality …