Emotional dysregulation and Borderline Personality Disorder: Explaining the link between secondary psychopathy and alexithymia

• We examined variables contributing to the secondary psychopathy and alexithymia link.
• Borderline PD and emotional dysregulation helped explain the association.
• Secondary and alexithymia were related to similar emotion regulation processes.
• Alexithymia, not secondary, was related to lack of emotional awareness.
• Therapeutic methods like DBT and mindfulness might be useful for these constructs.

Research explaining the overlap between psychopathy and alexithymia is in its infancy. A study by Lander, Lutz-Zois, Rye, and Goodnight (2012) revealed a significant positive correlation between secondary, but not primary, psychopathy and alexithymia. However, little is known about what accounts for this differential association. Because both alexithymia (Webb & McMurran, 2008) and secondary psychopathy (Blackburn, 1996) have been linked to Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), the current study sought to determine if emotional processing deficits characteristic of BPD could explain the link between secondary psychopathy and alexithymia. The results supported the hypothesis that BPD would mediate the association between secondary psychopathy and alexithymia. Implications, limitations, and future directions are discussed.