The wandering mind in borderline personality disorder: Instability in self- and other-related thoughts
Research output: Contribution to journal › Research article › Contributed › peer-review
Contributors
Abstract
Diagnostic criteria for borderline personality disorder (BPD) include instability in identity and interpersonal relationships. Here, we probed whether instability is already present in BPD patients' thoughts about themselves and others. We tested BPD patients (N=27) and healthy controls (N=25) with a mind-wandering task that assesses content and variability of stimulus-independent self-generated thoughts. Multi-level modeling revealed that while BPD patients and healthy controls mind-wander to a similar extent, BPD patients' thoughts are colored predominantly negatively. Most importantly, although their thoughts concerned the self and others as much as in controls, they fluctuated more strongly in the degree to which their thoughts concerned themselves and others and also gave more extreme ratings. Self- and other related thoughts that were more extreme were also more negative in valence. The increased variability supports current conceptualizations of BPD and may account for the instability in identity and interpersonal relationships.
Details
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 302-310 |
Number of pages | 9 |
Journal | Psychiatry research |
Volume | 242 |
Publication status | Published - 30 Aug 2016 |
Peer-reviewed | Yes |
Externally published | Yes |
External IDs
PubMed | 27318635 |
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ORCID | /0000-0003-2027-8782/work/25019938 |
Keywords
Sustainable Development Goals
ASJC Scopus subject areas
Keywords
- Borderline personality disorders, Identity, Interpersonal relationships, Mind-wandering, Self-generated thought, Self-other representations