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Objectives: Social cognitive impairment is considered to be a psychopathological cornerstone in adolescent females with borderline personality disorder. The aim is to compare the social cognitive performance in adolescent females with borderline personality traits and healthy adolescent females, and to assess the social cognitive performance in relation to the severity of borderline personality features. Design: A case–control study was conducted on 30 adolescent females who fulfilled the diagnostic criteria of DSM‐IV of borderline personality traits, compared to 30 matched healthy volunteer adolescent females. Methods: Borderline Personality Questionnaire (BPQ) was used to rate borderline personality features. Reading the Mind in the Eyes test (RMET) and Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition (MASC) were applied to assess social cognitive abilities. Results: The scores of RMET and some domains of MASC showed a highly significant difference between the patient and control groups. Scores of RMET and some domains of MASC showed significant correlation with impulsiveness, emptiness, relationship patterns, and quasi‐psychotic states subscales of BPQ. Conclusions: Adolescent females with borderline personality traits had lower social cognitive performance compared to healthy adolescent females. The intensity of this social cognitive deficit was evident to be related to impulsivity, emptiness, pattern of relationships, and quasi‐psychotic states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective(s): For a case of severe perfectionism, comorbid with complex trauma symptomatology including suicidality, self‐harming, and other markers of borderline personality, we demonstrate the use of the empirically confirmed process identified in memory reconsolidation (MR) research for the unlearning and nullification, or "erasure," of emotional and behavioral responses driven by learned expectations and mental models. MR has been proposed as a transtheoretical, unifying mechanism underlying profound psychotherapeutic change. The therapist (first author), under the second author's supervision, used a varied set of clinical skills woven together through a focus on the MR process. Results: The result was a depotentiation of underlying, traumatic emotional learnings and near‐total disappearance of perfectionistic and self‐harming behaviors, urges and attitudes after 1 year of therapy. Conclusions: Implications of this case are discussed in terms of symptom generation by implicit emotional learnings and MR as a promising framework for advancing the effectiveness and unification of psychotherapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study examined the presence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a predictor of treatment response to dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) across the primary outcomes of interest within DBT (i.e., borderline personality disorder [BPD] symptoms, deliberate self‐harm, emotion regulation [ER] difficulties) and PTSD symptoms. Method: Participants (N = 56) were consecutive admissions to an outpatient DBT clinic that completed diagnostic interviews at intake and self‐report outcome measures at intake and every 3 months throughout the treatment. Results: Patients with (vs. without) a PTSD diagnosis did not report greater clinical severity at intake on most outcome measures, with the exception of PTSD symptom severity and, among older patients only, ER difficulties. The presence of a PTSD diagnosis was not associated with poorer treatment response to DBT. Instead, PTSD was associated with better response on the measure of BPD symptom severity. Conclusions: The results suggest that patients with PTSD can benefit from DBT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Appropriate contextualized emotion goals (i.e., desired emotional endpoints that facilitate goal attainment) are fundamental to emotion regulation, as they may determine the direction of regulation efforts. Given that difficulties in emotion regulation are prevalent in borderline personality disorder (BPD), we explored whether BPD traits (Study 1) and BPD diagnosis (Study 2) presented specific contextualized emotion goals, and whether these emotion goals may be linked to difficulties in emotion regulation. Methods: In Study 1, 358 individuals were recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk and assessed on the presence of borderline traits, emotion regulation ability, and general and contextualized emotion goals. In Study 2, these measures were employed in a sample of 35 people with BPD and 35 matched controls who were also assessed on their current mood state and screened for Axis I and II disorders of the DSM‐IV. Results: Study 1 showed that emotion dysregulation was positively predicted by borderline traits and contextualized emotion goals that impair goal attainment (i.e., greater preference for anger for collaboration and happiness for confrontation). Findings of Study 2 also showed that a higher preference for happiness for confrontation was linked to higher emotion dysregulation in both individuals with BPD and controls. Furthermore, individuals with BPD reported a lower preference for happiness for collaboration than controls. Conclusions: These results support the importance of looking at emotion goals and its link with emotion dysregulation. Interventions targeting maladaptive contextualized goals may represent an important therapeutic window to enhance emotion regulation. Practitioner points: Clinical implications BPD individuals' emotion regulation is linked to maladaptive emotion goals.Helping people at risk to manipulate their emotion goals to be more context sensitive may enhance well‐being and serve as a therapeutic tool in practice. Limitations The present research only considered the context of collaboration and confrontation, but other contexts more relevant for individuals with BPD (i.e., self‐harm situations) might provide valuable information about their difficulties in emotion regulation.To study contextualized emotion goals in clinical populations, longitudinal rather than cross‐sectional designs should be considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aims of this study were to evaluate the predicting effects of borderline personality symptoms and self‐concept and identity disturbances on internet addiction, significant depression, and suicidality among college students at follow‐up assessments conducted 1 year later. A sample of 500 college students aged between 20 and 30 years participated in this study. Their levels of borderline personality symptoms, self‐concept and identity disturbances, internet addiction, depression, and suicidality at baseline and at follow‐up interviews were assessed through the Borderline Symptoms List, Self‐concept and Identity Measure, Chen Internet Addiction Scale, Beck Depression Inventory‐II, and questions related to suicidality from the Epidemiological version of the Kiddie Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia, respectively. A total of 324 college students received follow‐up assessments 1 year later. Among them, 15.4%, 27.5%, and 17% had internet addiction, significant depression, and suicidality, respectively. Our result revealed the severity of borderline symptoms, disturbed identity, unconsolidated identity, and lack of identity at initial assessment increased the occurrence of internet addiction, significant depression, and suicidality at follow‐up assessment except for the predictive effect of unconsolidated identity on internet addiction. The results indicated that self‐concept and identity and borderline symptoms may have a significant role in the risk of mental health problems in college students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study examined whether a history of childhood abuse (CA) strengthened the association between borderline personality disorder (BPD) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the aftermath of intimate partner violence (IPV). This hypothesis arises from clinical literature but has not been examined empirically. We predicted that a history of CA would enhance associations between BPD features and PTSD symptoms. Method: Dimensional assessment of both PTSD and BPD was made in a sample of 211 women who sought mental health services following IPV. Two analyses were conducted using clinician‐assessed DSM‐IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th ed.) PTSD symptoms: (a) total score and (b) symptom clusters. Results: Using path analysis, results indicated significant associations between BPD features and PTSD symptoms, but no significant interaction between BPD and CA in either analysis. Conclusions: Results are discussed given current understanding of comorbidities involving PTSD, with particular attention to potential implications for clinical practice. Areas for future research are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective The study focused on the relationship between mixed depression and borderline personality disorder ( BPD). Method The sample comprised 2811 patients with a major depressive episode ( MDE). Clinical characteristics were compared in patients with ( BPD+) and without ( BPD−) comorbid BPD and in BPD+ with ( MXS+) and without ( MXS−) mixed features according to DSM-5 criteria. Results A total of 187 patients (6.7%) met the criteria for BPD. A DSM- IV- TR diagnosis of bipolar disorder ( BD) was significantly more frequent in patients with BPD+ than in patients with BPD. Patients with BPD+ were significantly younger and reported lower age at onset than BPD−. Patients with BPD+ also showed more hypomania/mania in first-degree relatives in comparison with patients with BPD−, as well as more psychiatric comorbidity, mixed features, atypical features, suicide attempts, prior mood episodes and antidepressant-induced hypo/manic switches. Mixed features according to DSM-5 criteria were observed in 52 (27.8%) BPD+. In comparison with MXS−, MXS+ were significantly younger at age of onset and at prior mood episode and had experienced more mood episodes and hypo/manic switches with antidepressant treatments. Conclusion Major depressive episode patients with comorbid BPD reported a high prevalence of mixed features and BD. The presence of DSM-5 mixed features in MDE patients with BPD may be associated with complex course and reduced treatment response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examined children's borderline personality features and their association with developmentally appropriate factors, including friendship exclusivity, forms of aggression and peer maltreatment with a non-Western urban sample. The participants consisted of 234 Japanese preadolescents who were in the fourth and fifth grade (50% girls; ages: 9-11). Results of correlational analyses show that borderline personality features were stable during a six-month period ( r = 0.55). Moreover, results of mixed linear models indicate that friendship exclusivity was associated with elevated borderline personality features concurrently and longitudinally, after controlling for the effects of physical and relational aggression. Physical aggression (not relational aggression) and physical victimization (not relational victimization) also predicted relative increases in borderline personality features. These findings are discussed from a cultural-developmental perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individuals with substance use disorders are more likely to have antisocial and borderline personality disorder than non-substance abusers. Recently, research has examined the relations between early maladaptive schemas and personality disorders, as early maladaptive schemas are believed to underlie personality disorders. However, there is a dearth of research on the relations between early maladaptive schemas and personality disorders among individuals seeking treatment for substance abuse. The current study examined the relations among early maladaptive schemas and antisocial and borderline personality within in a sample of men seeking substance abuse treatment ( n = 98). Results demonstrated that early maladaptive schema domains were associated with antisocial and borderline personality symptoms. Implications of these findings for substance use treatment and research are discussed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Key Practitioner Message Antisocial (ASPD) and Borderline (BPD) personality disorder symptoms are prevalence among individuals seeking substance abuse treatment., Early maladaptive schemas are believed to underlie the development of ASPD and BPD symptoms, and are also prevalence among individuals seeking substance use treatment., Findings from the current study suggest that specific early maladaptive schema domains predict ASPD and BPD symptoms in a substance abuse treatment seeking sample of adult males., The treatment of ASPD and BPD among men seeking substance use treatment may want to focus on early maladaptive schemas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives The current preliminary study investigated whether deficits in mindfulness (awareness, attentiveness, and acceptance of the present experience) may underlie the relationship of borderline personality disorder (BPD) features to self-injury and overall acts of harmful dysregulated behavior. Method Nonparametric bootstrapping procedures were used to examine theoretical relationships among variables in a psychiatric sample of adults ( N = 70). Participants were asked to imagine themselves in distress-inducing situations and then write what they would actually do to decrease distress in such situations. Results As hypothesized, mindfulness statistically mediated the relationship of BPD features to reported acts of (a) self-injury and (b) overall harmful dysregulated behaviors. Conclusions Difficulties in the ability to be aware, attentive, and accepting of ongoing experience may play a role in the relationship of BPD features to harmful dysregulated behaviors. Future research should clarify potential reciprocal effects between BPD features and mindfulness with prospective, multioccasion designs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The division between Axis I clinical syndromes and Axis II personality disorders is a long-standing distinction based primarily on three guiding principles: phenomenology, cause, and course. Clinical syndromes were generally thought to be characterized by transient symptoms with biological causes and an unstable course; personality disorders were supposed by many to be characterized by long-standing personality traits, whose roots were primarily psychological, and a stable and unremitting course. Borderline personality disorder (BPD), however, is a condition characterized by distinct clinical symptoms, varied causes, and a relatively unstable course. Past theorizing about the distinction between Axis I and Axis II disorders is presented in light of recent empirical evidence refuting the rationalization for the separation of personality disorders and clinical syndromes using BPD as a means for comparison. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Psychol 61: 1509–1523, 2005. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim The purpose of the present study was to examine one facet of employment viability, losing a job on purpose, among individuals with borderline personality symptomatology ( BPS). Methods Using a cross-sectional self-report survey methodology in a combined sample of four prior studies from the same study site ( n = 1493), we examined the relationship between losing a job on purpose and two self-report measures for BPS. Results There were 7.6% of participants that endorsed losing a job on purpose, with no statistically significant difference between the proportions of males and females. Point-biserial correlation coefficients revealed that those who endorsed losing a job on purpose scored statistically significantly higher on both measures of BPS and were more likely to exceed the clinical cut-off scores on both measures of BPS. Multiple regression analyses indicated that findings were independent of gender or age. Conclusion One factor in poor employment viability among individuals with BPS appears to be the behaviour of losing a job on purpose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]