The moderating role of borderline personality in the relationships between deliberate self‐harm and emotion‐related factors

Abstract

AbstractThis study examined the associations between deliberate self‐harm (DSH) and key emotion‐related factors thought to underlie this behaviour (i.e. emotional dysregulation, avoidance and inexpressivity) among a non‐clinical sample of individuals with clinically‐relevant levels of borderline personality disorder (BPD) symptoms (high BPD) and those without significant BPD pathology (low BPD), and explored the moderating role of BPD status in these associations. Participants were 392 undergraduates who completed questionnaires assessing DSH, BPD symptoms, emotion dysregulation, experiential avoidance and emotional inexpressivity. Consistent with theories emphasizing the centrality of emotion dysregulation to DSH, overall emotion dysregulation and the particular dimension related to perceived difficulties modulating emotional arousal were associated with DSH status among both the high‐BPD and low‐BPD groups. However, other correlates of DSH differed as a function of BPD status, with emotional inexpressivity associated with DSH among the high‐BPD group and non‐judging of inner experience (negatively) associated with DSH among the low‐BPD group. Experiential avoidance was associated with DSH frequency among self‐harming individuals in the low‐BPD group. The results provide support for the role of emotion‐related factors (in particular, emotion dysregulation) in DSH among both high‐BPD and low‐BPD individuals, and highlight the need to control for BPD pathology when examining the correlates of DSH within non‐clinical samples. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.