Atypical Emotional Responses in Borderline Personality Disorder and Implications for Intervention

Abstract

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is defined as a mood instability personality disorder. Generally, people with BPD develop suicidal, self-harming behaviors, and comorbid disorders, such as major depression disorder (MDD) and anxiety disorder. BPD is mainly caused by traumatic experiences and abuse in childhood. The symptom of BPD usually begins at adolescence. According to the previous research, BPD patients expressed more negative emotions comparing with typically developing group. Their reference activity (RA) and reflective function (RF) are both damaged. Besides that, BPD patients are also different from the norm in terms of self-consciousness at two aspects. Additionally, BPD patients may experience emotional dysregulation and loss of emotional goals. They have greater aggressive tendency rather than cooperation. Moreover, BPD groups were difficult to discern ambiguous facial emotions, and traumatic experiences can also influence the facial recognition barriers. Regarding interventions for BPD, BPD patients are taught to use the emotional labels to regulate emotions. After intervention, BPD groups improved their patience and adjusted their emotional difficulties. In the previous studies, the samples were relatively small, and no long-term observation were conducted. Future research should adopt longitudinal designs to enable deeper understanding of this area. This review can give some suggestions to intervention studies and practices for adolescents who are at risk of BPD.