Volitional determinants of self-harm behaviour and suicidal risk in persons with borderline personality disorder

The results highlight the critical importance of experiences of emotional neglect and other forms of abuse in childhood for the development of pathology in BPD patients. These early experiences of neglect promote deficits in self-regulation of emotion (state orientation), which together with depression or demanding circumstances, lead to an increase in the risk of suicide, or in self-harm behaviour, respectively.