Emotional functioning of individuals with borderline personality traits in a nonclinical population (original) (raw)
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Emotion Dysregulation as a Core Feature of Borderline Personality Disorder
Journal of Personality Disorders, 2009
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a debilitating mental illness that affects approximately 1-2% of the general population. Researchers have increasingly come to view emotion dysregulation as a core feature of BPD. The present study examines the relationship between BPD symptomatology and emotion dysregulation using the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) in two college samples. BPD symptoms were assessed by self-report (MSI-BPD) in sample 1 and by semistructured interview (SIDP-IV) in sample 2. Results suggest that emotion dysregulation accounts for unique variance in BPD even after controlling for traditional indicators of negative emotionality, including depression, anxiety, and negative affect. Findings support theories regarding the role of emotion dysregulation in BPD and provide directions for future research.
Emotion Regulation in a Disordered World: Understanding Borderline Personality Disorder
In Christian Tewes & Giovanni Stanghellini. Eds. Time and Body: Phenomenological and Psychopathological Approaches. Cambridge: CUP, 2020
This paper addresses the phenomenology of emotion dysregulation, focusing on borderline personality disorder (BPD). We emphasize how (a) emotions ordinarily arise within the context of a structured experiential world, (b) emotions play a role in maintaining, repairing, and reshaping that world, and (c) both the world's stability and the workings of emotion-processes depend on our being able to relate to other people in certain ways. We go on show how, if (a), (b), and (c) are accepted, emotion dysregulation (of the kind associated with BPD) is implied by a way of experiencing and relating to the social world as whole. Hence it is not to be conceived of simply as a matter of disordered emotion. Rather, it involves emotions operating upon a disordered world. Furthermore, given that other people play essential roles in sustaining a structured, practically meaningful world and regulating the emotions that arise within it, emotion regulation and dysregulation turn out to be interpersonal, rather than wholly intrapersonal, in structure.
Emotion dysregulation as a maintenance factor of borderline personality disorder features
Comprehensive Psychiatry, 2014
We examined within-individual changes in emotion dysregulation over the course of one year as a maintenance factor of borderline personality disorder (BPD) features. We evaluated the extent to which (1) BPD symptom severity at baseline predicted within-individual changes in emotion dysregulation and (2) within-individual changes in emotion dysregulation predicted four BPD features at 12-month follow-up: affective instability, identity disturbances, negative relationships, and impulsivity. The specificity of emotion dysregulation as a maintaining mechanism of BPD features was examined by controlling for a competing intervening variable, interpersonal conflict. BPD symptoms at baseline predicted overall level and increasing emotion dysregulation. Additionally, increasing emotion dysregulation predicted all four BPD features at 12-month follow-up after controlling for BPD symptoms at baseline. Further, overall level of emotion dysregulation mediated the association between BPD symptom severity at baseline and both affective instability and identity disturbance at 12-month follow-up, consistent with the notion of emotion dysregulation as a maintenance factor. Future research on the malleability of emotion dysregulation in laboratory paradigms and its effects on short-term changes in BPD features is needed to inform interventions.
Borderline Personality Disorder and Emotion Dysregulation, 2017
Background: Research has supported the notion that emotion dysregulation is a core feature of BPD. However, given that this feature is typical of healthy adolescents as well as adolescents with other psychiatric disorders, the specificity of emotion dysregulation to BPD in this age group has not yet been determined. The overall aim of this study was to examine emotion dysregulation in adolescent inpatients with BPD compared with non-BPD inpatient adolescents and healthy non-clinical adolescents, taking into account both global emotion dysregulation deficits and more specific impairments. Method: The sample included 185 adolescent inpatients with BPD (M = 15.23, SD = 1.52), 367 non-BPD psychiatric inpatient adolescents (M = 15.37, SD = 1.40), and 146 healthy adolescents (M = 15.23, SD = 1.22), all of whom were between the ages of 12 and 17. Borderline personality features were assessed, along with emotion dysregulation and psychiatric severity. Results: After controlling for age, gender, and psychiatric severity, results revealed that adolescents with BPD had higher overall emotional dysregulation compared with non-BPD psychiatric controls and healthy controls. These differences were apparent in only two domains of emotion dysregulation including limited access to emotion regulation strategies perceived as effective and impulse control difficulties when experiencing negative emotions. Conclusions: Findings suggest BPD-specific elevations on emotion dysregulation generally, and subscales related to behavioral regulation specifically.
Emotion Dysregulation in Borderline Personality Disorder: A Literature Review
DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), 2017
The goal of this literature review is to describe the state of art related to emotion dysregulation in BPD and to illustrate a possible descriptive model. As of today, no consensus in literature is reached, but, from a conceptual point of view, most of the authors agrees with Linehan's theory in understanding emotion dysregulation both as affective instability and as a frequent recourse to dysfunctional regulation strategies. The latter is what emotion dysregulation is from an operational point of view. The descriptive model explained in this paper is a possible way to bridge the conceptual and operative views of emotion dysregulation in BPD.
Cognition and Emotion, 2017
There is little research examining whether the selection of emotion regulation strategies is compromised among individuals characterised by emotion dysregulation. In a sample of 149 undergraduates, we examined the selection and effectiveness of 2 emotion regulation strategies (reappraisal or distraction) in response to emotionally evocative stimuli, and their relationship with emotion dysregulation, measured by borderline personality disorder (BPD) feature severity. Stimulus intensity and self-reported negative emotional intensity were also compared as predictors of strategy selection. Results indicated that self-reported negative emotional intensity was a stronger predictor of strategy selection than stimulus intensity, and participants generally selected reappraisal over distraction. However, increases in self-reported negative emotional intensity was associated with an increased likelihood of choosing distraction, particularly among individuals higher in BPD features. In general, distraction exhibited less effectiveness than reappraisal, and higher BPD features did not differentially impact such effectiveness. Our findings indicate that individuals higher in emotion dysregulation prefer to use distraction as self-reported negative emotional intensity increases, a strategy which, overall, may not be as effective as reappraisal. Selection, rather than effectiveness of emotion regulation strategy might be a key feature of individuals characterised by emotion dysregulation.
Borderline personality features: Instability of selfesteem and affect
Journal of social and clinical …, 2006
On the basis of clinical literature pertaining to borderline personality disorder, it was hypothesized that individuals with borderline personality features would show evidence of self-esteem and affective instability. In addition to this instability, it was hypothesized that these individuals would show evidence of stronger reactions to daily interpersonal stress (i.e., lability). These hypotheses were examined through the employment of an experience-sampling design. The present findings suggest that individuals with borderline personality features possess unstable low self-esteem as well as negative affect that is high and unstable. Individuals with borderline personality features were also found to possess self-esteem and feelings of rejection that were labile in response to daily interpersonal stress.
Different aspects of emotional intelligence of borderline personality disorder
Clinical psychology & psychotherapy, 2017
The present study investigated deficiencies in different components of emotional intelligence in borderline personality disorder (BPD). The Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT) and the Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i) were used to assess EI dimensions. BPD patients (N = 85; 69 women; M = 33.6 years) were compared with Cluster C personality disorder (PD) patients (N = 39; 23 women; M = 36.6 years) and nonpatients (N = 69; 44 women; M = 35.6 years). Compared to the Cluster C PD patients and the nonpatient group, BPD patients displayed only deficits in their ability to understand emotions as measured with the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test. The Emotional Quotient Inventory only revealed deficits in stress management in BPD patients compared to Cluster C PD patients. Our findings suggest that BPD patients have the ability to regulate emotions effectively, but they subjectively experience deficits in emotion regulation and therefore may not use t...
Emotional processing in borderline personality disorder
2012
This study examines whether individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD) would exhibit augmented emotional responses to picture stimuli after being challenged with an ideographic interpersonal conflict script. Participants were 24 adults diagnosed with BPD, 23 adults diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD), and 28 normal controls. Participants viewed emotionally evocative pictures before and after listening to the interpersonal script while a variety of physiological measures were recorded. Findings indicated that the interpersonal script was effective in eliciting enduring emotional responses from the BPD group relative to the control groups. However, despite the effectiveness of the interpersonal challenge task, there were no group differences in emotional responding to the affect eliciting stimuli. The findings underscore the complexities involved in examining emotional dysregulation in BPD in a laboratory setting.
Emotional Responsiveness in Borderline Personality Disorder
The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 2019
The present study aims to test the hypothesis of biological hyperarousal and hyperreactivity underpinning the dysfunctional emotional processes of borderline personality disorder (BPD). Self-reported (quality and intensity of emotions) and physiological (respiratory sinus arrhythmia [RSA] and heart rate) data were collected in 14 clinical subjects with BPD and in 14 control subjects (healthy controls [HCs]), during the administration of six video clips with different emotional contents. Our findings showed a constant hyperarousal state (lower RSA) in the clinical group, supporting the hypothesis of a biological vulnerability to emotional dysregulation. BPD patients showed lower self-reported happiness in positive stimuli compared with HCs and a significant association between emotional dysregulation and physiological hyperreactivity to neutral stimuli. Our data support the hypothesis of a constant condition of physiological preparedness to threat and danger in BPD subjects. Moreover, our results highlight the influence of self-reported ability in regulating emotions in explaining BPD responses to specific emotional situations.