Emotion Differentiation as a Protective Factor Against Nonsuicidal Self-Injury in Borderline Personality Disorder

Evidence that nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) serves a maladaptive emotion regulation function in borderline personality disorder (BPD) has drawn attention to processes that may increase risk for NSSI by exacerbating negative emotion, such as rumination. However, more adaptive forms of emotion processing, including differentiating broad emotional experiences into nuanced emotion categories, might serve as a protective factoragainst NSSI. Using an experience-sampling diary, the present study tested whether differentiation of negative emotion was associated with lower frequency of NSSI acts and urges in 38 individuals with BPD who reported histories of NSSI. Participants completed a dispositional measure of rumination and a 21-day experience-sampling diary, which yielded an index of negative emotion differentiation and frequency of NSSI acts and urges. A significant rumination by negative emotion differentiation interaction revealed that rumination predicted higher rates of NSSI acts and urges in participants with difficulty differentiating their negative emotions. The results extend research on emotion differentiation into the clinical literature and provide empirical support for clinical theories that suggest emotion identification and labeling underlie strategies for adaptive self-regulation and decreased NSSI risk in BPD

Understanding Emotion Inflexibility in Risk for Affective Disease: Integrating Current Research and Finding a Path Forward

Emotion-related disorders (e.g., depression, anxiety, stress, eating, substance and some personality disorders) include some of the most common, burdensome, and costly diseases worldwide. Central to many, if not all of these disorders, may be patterns of rigid or inflexible emotion responses. Indeed, theorists point to emotion in-flexibility as a potential cause or maintaining factor in emotion-related diseases. Despite the increasing prominence of emotion inflexibility in theories of affective disease, a comprehensive review of the developing empirical literature has not yet been conducted. Accordingly, this review will examine the three dominant lines of inquiry assessing emotion flexibility. These include: (1) the capacity to use and vary deliberate emotion regulation strategies, (2) the context sensitivity of spontaneous emotional responses, and (3) flexibility in the appraisal of emotional events and experiences. Moreover, current evidence suggests that each of these three lines of research may converge to suggest the interplay of two key biological dimensions in emotion inflexibility, threat sensitivity, and cognitive control, known to be impaired in patients with affective disorders. In short, this developing body of work suggests a path by which future research could explicate and even exploit the ties between emotion inflexibility and affective disease, contributing to the development of improved models of risk, assessment, and intervention, with broad implications for psychological health

From Negative to Positive and Back Again: Polarized Affective and Relational Experience in Borderline Personality Disorder

Although borderline personality disorder is often described in terms of polarized (all-good vs. all-bad) experiences of relationships and affects, few studies have investigated this phenomenon. Using an experience-sampling diary completed by participants up to 5 random times daily for 21 days, my co-authors and I showed greater relational and affective polarity in adults with borderline personality disorder than healthy controls and associations between increases in polarity with increased reports of interpersonal stress and harmful impulsive behavior

Mediation analysis examining post-task NED as a mediator of the relationship between group and one-week post-task distress.

Estimates based on 10,000 bootstrap samples (n = 102).</p

Flowchart of study procedures.

SCL-90-R = Symptom Checklist 90-Revised, IDAS-II = Inventory of Depression and Anxiety Symptoms, ESES = Emotional Self-Efficacy Scale.</p

Mediation analysis examining post-task NED as a mediator of the relationship between group and two-month post-task distress.

Estimates based on 10,000 bootstrap samples (n = 88).</p

Mediation analysis examining post-task ESE as a mediator of the relationship between group and one-week post-task distress.

Estimates based on 10,000 bootstrap samples (n = 107).</p

Moderated mediation results for conditional indirect effects (<i>n</i> = 100).

Moderated mediation results for conditional indirect effects (n = 100).</p