Perry Hoffman, a former elementary-school teacher and a mother of three with a degree in social work , was working part time in a psychiatric ward when she became fascinated by borderline personality disorder, a poorly understood condition characterized by extreme neediness and dark swarms of emotion.

Her interest led her to perform research on the condition, which usually strikes in the teenage years or earlier and takes a harsh toll on family members. That gave her an idea: a support organization for relatives.

She went on to co-found and direct a family network that not only provided authoritative education about borderline personality but also built skills to manage it, enlisting parents to teach parents. The program, which became available throughout the world, is seen as a model across psychiatry.

Dr. Hoffman died on Nov. 3 at her home in Mamaroneck, N.Y. She was 75 . Her husband, Bruce Hoffman, said the cause was Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a neurodegenerative disorder.