Fasle Allegations - Borderline

EVALUATION OF PATIENTS' ALLEGATIONS Factors To Be Considered 1. 2. 3. 4.

Is accuser creditable? Is story consistent and believable? Is there a motive for revenge or mischief? Have other allegations been made previously? Does a pattern of allegations exist? 5. Has the patient been counseled in their charges by some professional who has vested interest? 6. Is there any physical evidence of misdeed? 7. What is the reputation of the accused? 8. How does the accused respond to the charges? 9. Are there issues of custody, property settlement, divorce, or suit involved? 10. Is there a history of personality disorder - antisocial, narcissistic, borderline - in either party? False allegations of abuse occur in a variety of contexts; the most frequent being 1) Disputed and ugly divorce cases; 2) in custody disputes involving children; 3) by angry borderline patients; 4) by patients with Munchausen's syndrome by proxy; 5) by psychopaths against authority figures; 6) by inadequate patients with strong needs for recognition/attention; 7) by patients with personality disorders; 8) by substance abusers, particularly alcoholics; 9) by patients with paranoid psychoses; 10) by patients with paranoid personality; 11) by patient with "multiple personalities"15; 12) by passive patients urged to file complaints by their therapists to meet the unspoken needs of the therapist.

On another occasion, we talked with a young borderline woman, who reported that she had made allegations to her county medical society that her psychiatrist had been sexually inappropriate with her. She reported that she was angry at him, that he had not given her the attention that she wanted, and that she made up the charges to get even. Although she candidly reported that he had never touched her, she said that she "was sure that he wanted to." Her physician was subjected to a lengthy series of hearings, but the accuser left the state prior to the conclusion of any formalized complaint. The charges were dropped when she refused to further pursue them or attend a hearing to tell her story. The doctor had clearly been made to "pay the price" for not meeting her narcissistic and borderline needs for attention and recognition.