How do I want to feel? The link between emotion goals and difficulties in emotion regulation in borderline personality disorder.

Abstract

Appropriate contextualized emotion goals (i.e., desired emotional endpoints that facilitate goal attainment) are fundamental to emotion regulation, as they may determine the direction of regulation efforts. Given that difficulties in emotion regulation are prevalent in borderline personality disorder (BPD), we explored whether BPD traits (Study 1) and BPD diagnosis (Study 2) presented specific contextualized emotion goals, and whether these emotion goals may be linked to difficulties in emotion regulation. In Study 1, 358 individuals were recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk and assessed on the presence of borderline traits, emotion regulation ability, and general and contextualized emotion goals. In Study 2, these measures were employed in a sample of 35 people with BPD and 35 matched controls who were also assessed on their current mood state and screened for Axis I and II disorders of the DSM-IV. Study 1 showed that emotion dysregulation was positively predicted by borderline traits and contextualized emotion goals that impair goal attainment (i.e., greater preference for anger for collaboration and happiness for confrontation). Findings of Study 2 also showed that a higher preference for happiness for confrontation was linked to higher emotion dysregulation in both individuals with BPD and controls. Furthermore, individuals with BPD reported a lower preference for happiness for collaboration than controls. These results support the importance of looking at emotion goals and its link with emotion dysregulation. Interventions targeting maladaptive contextualized goals may represent an important therapeutic window to enhance emotion regulation. Clinical implications BPD individuals' emotion regulation is linked to maladaptive emotion goals. Helping people at risk to manipulate their emotion goals to be more context sensitive may enhance well-being and serve as a therapeutic tool in practice. Limitations The present research only considered the context of collaboration and confrontation, but other contexts more relevant for individuals with BPD (i.e., self-harm situations) might provide valuable information about their difficulties in emotion regulation. To study contextualized emotion goals in clinical populations, longitudinal rather than cross-sectional designs should be considered.