An experimental pilot study of response to invalidation in young women with features of borderline personality disorder

One of the leading biosocial theories of borderline personality disorder (BPD) suggests that individuals with BPD have biologically based abnormalities in emotion regulation contributing to more intense and rapid responses to emotional stimuli, in particular, invalidation [Linehan, M.M., 1993. Cognitive–Behavioral Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder. Guilford, New York.]. This study used a 2 by 2 experimental design to test whether young women with features of BPD actually show increased physiological arousal in response to invalidation. Twenty-three women ages 18 to 29 who endorsed high levels of BPD symptoms and 18 healthy controls were randomly assigned to hear either a validating or invalidating comment during a frustrating task. Although we found preliminary support for differential response to these stimuli in self-report of valence, we found neither self-report nor physiological evidence of hyperarousal in the BPD features group, either at baseline or in response to invalidation. Interestingly, the BPD features group reported significantly lower comfort with emotion, and comfort was significantly associated with affective valence but not arousal. We discuss implications for understanding and responding to the affective intensity of this population.