Emotional Regulation And Affects In Patients With Borderline Personality Disorder

Emotional regulation and affect strategies have been shown to be relevant in the borderline personality disorder (BPD) clinic. The present study is faced with the need to have empirical evidence on the relationship between the internal components of these manifestations: cognitive reappraisal, expressive suppression, positive affect and negative affect. Patients diagnosed with BPD (n = 35) were compared with healthy controls (n = 35) socio demographically and the analyzes considered all participants together. The results indicate that the psychological variables studied present more dysfunctional values in BPD patients. The symptomatic of BPD does not moderate the relationship between cognitive reappraisal and negative affect; and, cognitive reappraisal together with positive affect are associated with less BPD symptoms. The results obtained offer different clinical implications. Future studies could use alternative measures of the emotional pattern, such as physiological methodologies.