Emotional Processing in Borderline Personality Disorder

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.