Social Cognition in Borderline Personality
Jan 26, 2013
In my last post I discussed some aspects of social cogntion that have recently been studied in relation to the impact of childhood abuse. Today, I'd like to briefly discuss a recent review of Social Cognition in those suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder recently published by some German experts in this field who have done some pioneering research in the past Roepke and colleagues from the Free University of Berlin -- this article is freely available, but I also provide it here [LINK].
From the article's abstract:
Many typical symptoms of borderline personality disorder (BPD) occur within interpersonal contexts, suggesting that BPD is characterized by aberrant social cognition. While research consistently shows that BPD patients have biases in mental state attribution (e.g., evaluate others as malevolent), the research focusing on accuracy in inferring mental states (i.e., cognitive empathy) is less consistent. For complex and ecologically valid tasks in particular, emerging evidence suggests that individuals with BPD have impairments in the attribution of emotions, thoughts, and intentions of others (e.g., Preißler et al., 2010). A history of childhood trauma and co-morbid PTSD seem to be strong additional predictors for cognitive empathy deficits. Together with reduced emotional empathy and aberrant sending of social signals (e.g., expression of mixed and hard-to-read emotions), the deficits in mental state attribution might contribute to behavioral problems in BPD. Given the importance of social cognition on the part of both the sender and the recipient in maintaining interpersonal relationships and therapeutic alliance, these impairments deserve more attention.
Those who go on to develop BPD often have histories of being abused as children (particularly with histories of emotional abuse -- see article by Hernandez et al, 2012 [LINK]), though I do not wish to overstate this -- see the review article by Lewis and Grenyer (2009) [LINK] as well as a recent study suggesting that the common finding of childhood abuse and adult BPD may be due to a common heritable link with internalizing and externalizing disorders Bornavalova et al [LINK] -- Clearly, even since the publication of the article by Lewis and Grenyer, there has been considerable progress in understanding under what conditions experiencing childhood abuse can "result", or at least be followed by, other disorders. Genetic or epigenetic factors likely play a role, but other "psychological" factors,such as social cognition and "cognitve style" likely play the critical role. This is important as it is perhaps these factors that are most available for change by the individual survivor.