PSYCHOSOCIAL-ASPECTS OF HIV AND AIDS

Psychiatrists see human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected patients who suffer from several types of psychiatric disorders and personalit y disorders. These syndromes can arise (1) in people who have had a pr evious history of a similar illness; (2) in people in whom the HIV inf ection exacerbates a borderline condition; (3) from the stress of the HIV infection and its known prognosis; and (4) only rarely is a person who is not HIV infected but becomes unduly or unrealistically concern ed about acquiring the infection.