Identification of Mental States and Interpersonal Functioning in Borderline Personality Disorder (original) (raw)
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Social-emotion recognition in borderline personality disorder
Comprehensive Psychiatry, 2006
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is characterized by interpersonal disturbances, but the neurocognitive aspects of these symptoms are poorly understood. We hypothesized that patients with BPD have impaired perception of emotional expressions, which are related to symptoms of interpersonal dysfunction. To control potential confounding factors, this study excluded subjects with comorbid diagnoses known to be associated with impaired affect perception. We tested 43 outpatients with BPD and 26 healthy controls on emotion recognition tasks (facial, prosodic, and integrated facial/prosodic), nonemotional facial feature recognition, and interpersonal antagonism (Buss-Durkee Hostility Index). Patients with BPD showed normal ability to recognize isolated facial or prosodic emotions but had impaired recognition of emotions in integrated facial/prosodic stimuli, as well as impaired discrimination of nonemotional facial features. In patients with BPD, impaired recognition of integrated emotional stimuli was associated with interpersonal antagonism, particularly suspiciousness and assaultiveness. These results suggest that patients with BPD have deficits in higher order integration of social information, which may be related to some of the more serious symptoms of the disorder. D
Frontiers in …, 2010
Disturbed relatedness is a core feature of borderline personality disorder (BPD), and impaired social cognition or deficits in “mentalization” are hypothesized to underlie this feature. To date, only weak empirical evidence argues for impairment in the recognition of emotions, thoughts, or intentions in BPD. Data from facial emotion recognition research indicate that these abilities are altered in BPD only if tasks are complex. The present study aims to assess social cognitive abilities in BPD. Sixty-four women with BPD and 38 healthy controls watched the “Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition” (MASC), a newly developed film displaying social interactions, and asking for an assessment of the intentions, emotions, and thoughts of the characters. In addition, participants completed an established but less ecologically valid measure of social cognition (“Reading the Mind in the Eyes”; RME). In the RME task, BPD patients did not display impairment in social cognition compared to healthy controls. By contrast, on the more sensitive MASC, women with BPD showed significantly impaired abilities in social cognition compared to healthy controls in their recognition of emotions, thoughts, and intentions. Comorbid PTSD, intrusions, and sexual trauma negatively predicted social cognitive abilities on the more sensitive MASC. Thus, our results suggest impaired social cognitive abilities in BPD. Especially for comorbid PTSD, intrusive symptoms, and history of sexual trauma predicted poor outcomes on social cognition tasks.
Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 2007
This study examined both mean levels and intraindividual variability in the mood and interpersonal behavior of individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD) and nonclinical control participants over a 20-day event-contingent recording period. Individuals in the BPD group experienced more unpleasantly valenced affect and were less dominant, more submissive, more quarrelsome, and more extreme in overall levels of behavior than control participants. In addition to these mean-level differences, individuals with BPD also reported more intraindividual variability in overall affect valence and in pleasantly valenced affect; displayed greater variability in dominant, quarrelsome, and agreeable behaviors; and exhibited an increased tendency to "spin" among interpersonal behaviors relative to nonclinical control participants. The findings document behavioral and affective manifestations of BPD in the context of naturally occurring interpersonal situations.
Archives of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy
Dysfunctional interpersonal patterns are a defining feature of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). A number of studies have aimed to determine if there are specific patterns in the interpersonal functioning of patients with BPD. The vast majority of these studies have used a widely-used rating system called the Core Conflictual Relationship Theme method [1]. To date, three main models of interpersonal functioning of patients with BPD have been developed using the CCRT [2, 3] including one model developed by our team . The aim of this study was to examine to what extent these three empirically-derived models of interpersonal functioning in patients with BPD overlap. borderline personality disorder / core conflictual relationship theme / CCrT / BPd / personality disorders / Interpersonal Functioning
Psychological Medicine, 2009
Background-Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is partly characterized by chronic instability in interpersonal relationships, which exacerbates other symptom dimensions of the disorder and can interfere with treatment engagement. Facial emotion recognition paradigms have been used to investigate the bases of interpersonal impairments in BPD, yielding mixed results. We sought to clarify and extend past findings by using the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET), a measure of the capacity to discriminate the mental state of others from expressions in the eye region of the face.
Emotional functioning of individuals with borderline personality traits in a nonclinical population
Psychiatry Research, 2010
Relatively few studies have evaluated the emotional functioning of individuals with borderline personality disorder traits, especially in nonclinical populations. This study therefore sought to understand further the emotional skills and subjective emotional experiences of adults with borderline traits in a community sample. Adult volunteers (N = 523) were recruited from community and student populations, and borderline personality was determined via three self-report measures. Close to one in six respondents (17.2%) selfreported borderline personality traits above the threshold on the three instruments. Poor skills in managing and understanding emotion were characteristic of these individuals. They also possessed significantly poorer subjective perception of emotion, management of their own emotions and management of others' emotions, relative to the non-borderline personality controls. Skills in managing and understanding emotion and the subjective experience of managing one's own emotions were significant multivariate predictors of borderline personality trait status. We conclude that persons with borderline personality traits have pronounced deficits in emotional understanding and management. Interventions targeting these deficits are needed, given the high prevalence of borderline traits in the community.
Interpersonal and Emotional Experiences of Social Interactions in Borderline Personality Disorder
The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 2009
General Aim: We examined interpersonal experiences of patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) using a time-contingent diary procedure to collect information about social interactions for 7 days. Method: We examined the (1) quantity of social interactions and (2) interpersonal and emotional experiences during social interactions for patients with BPD (BPD; N ϭ 42) compared with those with another personality disorder (OPD; N ϭ 46) and those without significant personality pathology (NOPD; N ϭ 23). Results: Results suggested that BPD patients have fewer social contacts compared with those in the NOPD group. Additionally, the BPD patients characterized their social interactions as more disagreeable, ambivalent, angry, empty, and sad compared with the OPD and NOPD groups. BPD patients reported experiencing more anxiety and less positive affect compared with the NOPD but not the OPD group. Conclusion: These findings highlight aspects of day-to-day interpersonal functioning that are specific to BPD.
Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 2012
A core feature of borderline personality disorder (BPD) is the tendency to evaluate one's experience with extreme polarity (i.e., feeling all good or all bad; Linehan, 1993). In this investigation, we examined the polarity of within-person reports of experience in individuals with BPD and healthy adults over the course of a 21-day, experience-sampling diary. We applied multilevel modeling techniques (Rafaeli, Rogers, & Ravelle, 2007) to capture the within-person covariance of momentary reports of negative and positive features of experience, either affective or relational. Our data indicated significantly greater polarity in reports of affective and relational experiences in BPD that increased during heightened interpersonal stress. We also examined the association of affective and relational polarity to reports of impulsive behaviors (e.g., self-injury, substance use, etc.) and found evidence that increased polarity in reports of affective (in low-stress contexts) and relational experiences (in high-stress contexts) predicted increased rate of reports of impulsive behaviors. Together, these data present strong evidence for the role of polarized experiences in BPD, and have implications for the treatment of individuals with this disorder.