Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T20:06:00.089Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Temperamental and acute symptoms of borderline personality disorder: associations with normal personality traits and dynamic relations over time

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 December 2009

C. J. Hopwood ,
M. B. Donnellan  and
M. C. Zanarini
C. J. Hopwood*
Affiliation:
Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA
M. B. Donnellan
Affiliation:
Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA
M. C. Zanarini
Affiliation:
McLean Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
*
*Address for correspondence: Dr C. J. Hopwood, Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824–1116, USA. (Email: [email protected])
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Background

Recent research suggests the utility of distinguishing temperamental and acute symptoms of borderline personality disorder (BPD). Temperamental symptoms, such as chronic anger and odd thinking, remit relatively slowly and have been hypothesized to reflect a hyperbolic predisposition to emotional pain and negativistic cognitions, whereas acute symptoms, such as substance abuse and chaotic relationships, remit relatively quickly and have been hypothesized to represent the consequences of maladaptations to triggering environmental events.

Method

The relationships of temperamental and acute BPD symptoms with normal personality traits and stability and dynamic associations over time across these symptom sets were tested in a 10-year longitudinal study of 362 patients with personality disorders.

Results

Temperamental symptoms were associated with high neuroticism, whereas acute symptoms were associated with low agreeableness. These symptoms had similar rank-order stabilities and relative changes in symptom sets were reciprocally linked in a cross-lagged path model suggesting dynamic associations between temperamental and acute symptoms over time.

Conclusions

The distinction between temperamental and acute BPD symptoms is supported by differential relations of these symptom sets to normal personality traits. Moreover, these symptoms appear to be linked in a mutually reinforcing dynamic over time. This distinction should be kept in mind in future studies of the aetiology of BPD and in diagnostic and treatment considerations.

Keywords

Borderline personality disordercross-lagged modelfive-factor modelpsychiatric nosologytemperament
Type
Original Articles
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 40 , Issue 11 , November 2010 , pp. 1871 - 1878
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderluh, M, Tchanturia, K, Rabe-Hesketh, S, Collier, D, Treasure, J (2008). Lifetime course of eating disorders: design and validity testing of a new strategy to define the eating disorder phenotype. Psychological Medicine 39, 105–114.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, LA (2005). Temperament as a unifying basis for personality and psychopathology. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 114, 505–521.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clark, LA, Watson, D, Mineka, S (1994). Temperament, personality, and the mood and anxiety disorders. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 103, 103–116.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Costa, PT Jr., McCrae, RR (1991). Professional Manual for the Revised NEO Personality Inventory and NEO Five Factor Inventory. Psychological Assessment Resources: Odessa, FL.Google Scholar
Gunderson, JG (2008). Borderline personality disorder: an overview. Social Work in Mental Health 6, 5–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harkness, AR, Lilienfeld, SO (1997). Individual differences science for treatment planning: personality traits. Psychological Assessment 9, 349–360.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hollingshead, AB (1957). Two Factor Index of Social Position. Yale University: New Haven, CT.Google Scholar
Lieb, K, Zanarini, MC, Schmahl, C, Linehan, MM, Bohus, M (2004). Borderline personality disorder. Lancet 364, 453–462.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McGlashan, TH, Grilo, CM, Sanislow, CA, Ralevski, E, Morey, LC, Gunderson, JG, Skodol, AE, Shea, MT, Zanarini, MC, Bender, D, Stout, RL, Yen, S, Pagano, M (2005). Two-year prevalence and stability of individual DSM-IV criteria for schizotypal, borderline, avoidant, and obsessive-compulsive personality disorders. American Journal of Psychiatry 162, 883–889.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Morey, LC (1991). Personality Assessment Inventory Professional Manual. Psychological Assessment Resources: Odessa, FL.Google Scholar
Morey, LC, Hopwood, CJ, Gunderson, JG, Skodol, AE, Shea, MT, Yen, S, Stout, RL, Zanarini, MC, Grilo, CM, Sanislow, CA, McGlashan, TH (2007). Comparison of alternative models for personality disorders. Psychological Medicine 37, 983–994.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Morey, LC, Zanarini, MC (2000). Borderline personality: traits and disorder. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 109, 733–737.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Roberts, BW, Kuncel, NR, Shiner, R, Caspi, A, Goldberg, LR (2007). The power of personality: the comparative validity of personality traits, socioeconomic status, and cognitive ability for predicting important life outcomes. Perspectives on Psychological Science 2, 313–345.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rothbart, M, Bates, J (1998). Temperament. In Handbook of Child Psychology: Vol. 3. Social, Emotional, and Personality Development, 5th edn (series ed. Damon, W., vol. ed. Eisenberg, N.), pp. 105–176. Wiley: New York.Google Scholar
Samuel, DB, Widiger, TA (2008). A meta-analytic review of the relationships between the five-factor model and DSM-IV-TR personality disorders: a facet level analysis. Clinical Psychology Review 28, 1326–1342.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sanislow, CA, Morey, LC, Grilo, CM, Gunderson, JG, Shea, MT, Skodol, AE, Stout, RL, Zanarini, MC, McGlashan, TH (2002). Confirmatory factor analysis of DSM-IV borderline, schizotypal, avoidant and obsessive-compulsive personality disorders: findings from the Collaborative Longitudinal Personality Disorders Study. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica 105, 28–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmideberg, M (1959). The borderline patient. In American Handbook of Psychiatry, vol. 1 ( ed. Arieti, S.), pp. 398–416. Basic Books: New York.Google Scholar
Shiner, RL (2009). The development of personality disorders: perspectives from normal personality development in childhood and adolescence. Development and Psychopathology 21, 715–734.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Warner, MB, Morey, LC, Finch, JF, Gunderson, JG, Skodol, AE, Sanislow, CA, Shea, MT, McGlashan, TH, Grilo, CM (2004). The longitudinal relationship of personality traits and disorders. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 113, 217–227.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zanarini, MC, Frankenburg, FR (2007). The essential nature of borderline psychopathology. Journal of Personality Disorders 21, 518–535.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zanarini, MC, Frankenburg, FR, Chauncey, DL, Gunderson, JG (1987). The diagnostic interview for personality disorders: inter-rater and test-retest reliability. Comprehensive Psychiatry 28, 467–480.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zanarini, MC, Frankenburg, FR, Hennen, J, Reich, DB, Silk, KR (2003). The longitudinal course of borderline psychopathology: 6-year prospective follow-up of the phenomenology of borderline personality disorder. American Journal of Psychiatry 160, 274–283.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zanarini, MC, Frankenburg, FR, Hennen, J, Reich, B, Silk, KR (2005). The McLean Study of Adult Development (MSAD): Overview and implications of the first six years of prospective follow-up. Journal of Personality Disorders 19, 505–523.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zanarini, MC, Frankenburg, FR, Reich, DB, Silk, KR, Hudson, JI, McSweeney, LB (2007). The subsyndromal phenomenology of borderline personality disorder: a 10 year follow-up study. American Journal of Psychiatry 164, 929–935.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zanarini, MC, Gunderson, JG, Frankenburg, FR, Chauncey, DL (1989). The Revised Diagnostic Interview for Borderlines: discriminating BPD from other Axis II disorders. Journal of Personality Disorders 3, 10–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar