Distress and risk-taking in borderline personality disorder: An examination of neurocognitive mechanisms

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a severe mental illness characterized by high rates of engagement in distress-induced risk behavior. Unfortunately, extant laboratory-based risk paradigms have failed to account for the role of distress in precipitating risk behavior, so many questions remain about processes mechanisms that underlie this behavior. The current study examined affect as a moderator of the relationship between diagnostic status and risk behavior, as measured by a behavioral risk task, and affective and non-affective neurocognitive functioning as potential mediators of this relationship. Results indicated that individuals with BPD engaged in more risk behavior in the distress condition than in the neutral condition, whereas individuals without BPD showed a decrease in risk behavior across the two conditions. However, corresponding changes in executive functioning were not observed, suggesting the need for continued research to identify alternative mechanisms (e.g., neurocognitive, motivational) to explain this effect

Gender Specific Effect of Psychological Stress and Cortisol Reactivity on Adolescent Risk Taking

The purpose of this study was to evaluate how psychological stress, gender and cortisol response to stress relate to risk behavior among 132 14–18 year old adolescents. Participants completed a laboratory based risk task prior to and immediately after a computerized psychological stress task, and salivary cortisol was collected from pre-stress to 60 minutes following initial stress exposure. Results indicate that adolescent boys (n = 59) and girls (n = 73) demonstrate different patterns of risk taking (RT) in response to stress, such that boys evidenced an increase in RT following stress exposure, whereas girls evidenced a decrease in RT. In addition, a gender by cortisol interaction demonstrated that for boys, both a smaller total cortisol output (AUCg) and peak cortisol response to stress (PC) was associated with greater stress-induced RT. Both cortisol measures were unrelated to stress-induced RT among girls. Taken together, data suggest that among boys, a blunted cortisol response to stress underlies an increase in risk taking in the context of psychological stress. Further research with an additional behavioral stress task is needed prior to drawing conclusions regarding the relation between female gender, cortisol response to stress, and risk taking in the context of psychological stress

Distress and risk behavior in borderline personality disorder: Motivation and self-efficacy for emotion regulation

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a persistent psychological disorder characterized by pervasive emotional difficulties, unstable relationships, identity disturbance and high rates of engagement in self-damaging risk behavior. Prominent theoretical perspectives on BPD suggest that the primary motivational basis for risk behavior is the regulation of negative emotional states. The goal of this study was to test several of the hypotheses suggested by emotion regulation models of risk behavior, using a rigorous experimental design. Specifically, we sought to demonstrate the causal effect of distress on risk behavior among individuals with and without BPD, and to examine motivational and self-regulatory mediators of: a) the relationship between emotion and engagement in risk behavior; and b) the relationship between BPD and distress-induced change in risk behavior. To this end, participants with and without BPD provided ratings of emotion, motivation for emotion regulation and risk behavior in the context of induced calm and distress, and completed a self-report measure of trait self-efficacy for emotion regulation. Results provide partial support for the study hypotheses. Only women with BPD showed an increase in risk behavior in the distress condition, and distress-induced change in risk behavior was predicted by both the intensity of emotion regulation goals and self-efficacy for emotion regulation. Findings support the perspective that risk behavior is enacted strategically in response to negative emotions and associated motivational states. For those with BPD, distress-induced risk behavior may reflect a type of emotion-regulatory resourcefulness that becomes maladaptive when used inflexibly or to the exclusion of other strategies

Distress Tolerance Moderates the Relationship between Negative Affect Intensity with Borderline Personality Disorder Levels

A number of studies have suggested that negative emotionality and negative affect intensity play key roles in the development and maintenance of borderline personality disorder (BPD). However, more recent research indicates that one\u27s response to affective discomfort may be an even more important variable in the pathogenesis of BPD than either negative emotionality or negative affect intensity per se. As such, the current study aimed to empirically test the moderating role of 2 well-validated laboratory measures of the ability to tolerate psychological distress (distress tolerance) in the relationship of negative emotionality and negative affect intensity with BPD levels. Results provide laboratory-based evidence for a moderating effect of distress tolerance on the relationship of negative emotionality and negative affect intensity with levels of BPD. Specifically, the 2 former variables were related to levels of BPD among those with low distress tolerance. The current results add support to existing developmental frameworks of BPD and suggest the importance of modifying one\u27s response to affective distress along with levels of negative emotionality in treatment settings

The Effectiveness of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Personality Disorders

Analiziraju se paralele između batonskog rata i rata protiv donjopanonskog kneza Ljudevita na temelju antičkih, odnosno ranosrednjovjekovnih vrela. Naročita pozornost posvećuje se prikazima situacija i izrazima koje su autori zapisa rabili opisujući oba rata, kako bi se uočio povijesnospisateljski i ideološki obrazac te međuovisnost narativa. Evidentiraju se i razlike koje su posljedica različitih historiografskih žanrova i ideoloških potreba. Napokon, uspoređuju se i praktične pojavnosti oba rata prema dostupnim vrelima. Osnovicu za usporedbu čine navodi iz Godišnjakâ Franačkog Kraljevstva (Annales regni Francorum) i Života Ludovikova (Vita Hludowici imperatoris) koji su sastavljeni u prvoj polovini 9. stoljeća i najiscrpnija su vrela za ustanak donjopanonskog kneza Ljudevita, odnosno iz Rimske povijesti (Historia Romana) Veleja Paterkula i Života cezarâ (De vita Caesarum) Svetonija Trankvila (rano 1. i rano 2. stoljeće), djela koja donose dragocjene podatke o ustanku Batonâ. Naročito se istražuje veza između franačkih vrela i Svetonijevih carskih životopisa, budući da je povijesnospisateljska tradicija karolinške renesanse nadahnuće pronašla upravo u Svetonijevoj biografskoj povjesnici (valja se prisjetiti Einhardova Života Karla Velikog, osobito ako se na umu ima da se u starijoj historiografiji Einharda smatralo jednim od autora / redaktora Godišnjakâ Franačkog Kraljevstva).The paper offers an analyzes of the parallels between the so-called War of the Batos (Bellum Batonianum) and the war against the duke of Lower Pannonia, Liudewit (Bellum Liedewiticum) based on ancient and early medieval written sources. Particular attention is paid to the depictions of situations and expressions used by authors in describing both wars, in order to detect the historiographical and ideological pattern and interdependence of the narratives. The differences resulting from various historiographical genres and ideological needs are also observed. Finally, the practical presentations of both wars are compared according to the available source material. The basis for comparison are accounts found in the Annales regni Francorum and the Vita Hludowici imperatoris, which were compiled in the first half of the 9th century, and are the most comprehensive sources for the uprising of the duke of Lower Pannonia, Ljudevit, as well as the Roman History (Historia Romana) by Velleius Paterculus and the Lives of Caesars (De vita Caesarum) by Suetonius Tranquillus (early 1st and early 2nd centuries AD), works that yield valuable information about the uprising of the two Batos. In particular, the connection between the Frankish sources and Suetonius’s imperial biographies is explored, since the historiographical tradition of the so-called Carolingian Renaissance found its inspiration precisely in Suetonius’s biographical history (one should remember Einhard’s Life of Charlemagne, especially if one takes into account that Einhard was thought by older historiography to be one of the authors/editors of the Annales regni Francorum). Both the Roman and Frankish sources that provide the information about the War of the Batos and the War against Liudewit, which are under scrutiny here, each look at these respective events from their own timelines and their own perspectives as undisputed sovereigns who, by their domination, guarantee peaceful state of affairs and general prosperity, therefore presenting any attempt to change the existing circumstances as blow to the right order of things. Their colonial discourse is rather obvious. Even when they seem to emphasize the virtues of their adversaries (regularly those are military virtues), or the difficulties associated with warfare against rebels and initial concerns, they do so to extol their own success. At the narrative level, the dependence of Frankish authors on Roman literary patterns can be seen in the formation of narratives, which, in line with genre restrictions, is reflected in the borrowing of syntagms and conceptual sets. Whether or not there is also at work a more direct reliance by Frankish authors on their Roman counterparts in relation to geopolitical considerations (the coincidence of the area of the events) is difficult to say with certainty, but the analysis conducted here seems to indicate that Frankish authors were certainly aware of this. The strong personalisation of the Carolingian-age war in southern Pannonia - besides being more in tune with the spirit of the era since it was about a vassal who rose against his lord – may have also been due to the fact that a not sufficiently specific mention of the Pannonian war in the context of the time might lead readers to think that the area north of the river Drava was affected as well, the entire limes Pannonicus (ARF, a. 826). A debt to Roman models, in a way, is additionally paid here with the reference to the „Pannonian expedition“ (expeditio Pannonica, ARF, a. 821). It is certainly clear from the Frankish records that Ljudevit’s uprising was the single most dramatic event in the history of the Carolingian dominance in the Danube-Adriatic area, which must have served as an additional trigger for Frankish authors to have before their eyes, as both a literary model and a political forerunner, the War of the Batos that the Romans themselves called their most serious conflict since the Punic Wars. In the end, the epilogue and lesson of the story of both the Roman and Frankish accounts are, mutatis mutandis, identical and correspond to ideological posits of either empires: in both cases the rebels were defeated, their leaders justifiably punished, and the empires gained deserved triumphs. Anything less could (or should) have been hardly expected

The Effectiveness of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Personality Disorders

This article provides a comprehensive review of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) treatments for personality disorders (PDs), including a description of the available treatments and empirical support, drawing on research published between 1980 and 2009. Research generally supports the conclusion that CBT is an effective treatment modality for reducing symptoms and enhancing functional outcomes among patients with PDs, thereby making it a useful framework for clinicians working with patients with PD symptomatology. There is a clear need, however, to develop and evaluate CBT in order to provide specific and more unambiguous treatment recommendations with particular relevance for understudied PDs

Emotion Regulation Promotes Persistence in a Residential Substance Abuse Treatment

Emotion regulation at treatment entry was evaluated among 115 patients in an inner-city substance use residential facility who either persisted (N = 94) or discontinued treatment (N = 21). Emotion regulation capacity including emotional clarity and the ability to engage in goal-directed behavior despite emotional distress, as well as lower scores on a measure of trait-negative emotionality, were associated with treatment persistence, whereas motivational variables were not. Findings indicate the importance of regulating negative emotions for treatment engagement among substance abusers

Emotion Regulation Promotes Persistence in a Residential Substance Abuse Treatment

Emotion regulation at treatment entry was evaluated among 115 patients in an inner-city substance use residential facility who either persisted (N = 94) or discontinued treatment (N = 21). Emotion regulation capacity including emotional clarity and the ability to engage in goal-directed behavior despite emotional distress, as well as lower scores on ameasure of trait-negative emotionality, were associated with treatment persistence, whereas motivational variables were not. Findings indicate the importance of regulating negative emotions for treatment engagement among substance abusers