Parasuicidality and Patient Careerism: Treatment Recidivism and the Dialectics of Failure

The author interprets parasuicidal behaviour as a means certain individuals use to sustain patient careers. Contrary to the current trend to identify this behaviour solely as the defining symptoms of borderline personality disorder, the author argues that parasuicidality often emerges from the symbiotic relationship between individuals with particular existential needs & the medicalized institutions that serve them. (42 refs.) JA