Citation

Lobbestael J, Arntz A. Behav. Res. Ther. 2010; 48(2): 116-124.

Affiliation

Department of Clinical Psychological Science, Maastricht University, PO Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands. Jill.Lobbestael@maastrichtuniversity.nl

Copyright

(Copyright © 2010, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.brat.2009.09.015

PMID

19854433

Abstract

Childhood abuse is an important precursor of borderline personality disorder (BPD) and antisocial personality disorder (ASPD). The current study compared the emotional reactivity to abuse-related stress of these patients on a direct and an indirect level. Changes in self-reported affect and schema modes, psychophysiology and reaction time based cognitive associations were assessed following confrontation with an abuse-related film fragment in patients with BPD (n=45), ASPD (n=21), Cluster C personality disorder (n=46) and non-patient controls (n=36). Results indicated a hyperresponsivity of BPD-patients on self-reported negative affect and schema modes, on some psychophysiological indices and on implicit cognitive associations. The ASPD-group was comparable to the BPD group on implicit cognitions but did not show self-reported and physiological hyper-reactivity. These findings suggest that BPD and ASPD-patients are alike in their implicit cognitive abuse-related stress reactivity, but can be differentiated in their self-reported and physiological response patterns.

Language: en