The influence of the diagnostic labels "schizophrenia" and "borderline personality disorder" on the expressed empathy of psychiatric nursing staff was assessed by examining nurses' written responses to a series of hypothetical patient statements. Respondents were more likely to demonstrate affective involvement in response to the schizophrenic patients' statements and were more likely to offer belittling or contradicting responses to the statements of patients with borderline personality disorder. The results corroborate increasing concerns that the diagnosis of borderline personality disorder has become a pejorative label for difficult patients and suggest that staff may provide stereotypic responses and less empathic care to borderline patients than to other patients.