[Relationship between emotion regulation and emotional intelligence in borderline personality disorder].

AIM

A typical trait of borderline personality disorder is emotional instability. The strategies that patients with BPD use to regulate their affects are not yet known. The purpose of presented research was an attempt to find the often used emotion regulation strategies, the eventual differences in value of emotional intelligence between BPD patients and healthy controls, and a relationship between emotion regulation and emotional intelligence in BPD. The work on FrAGe (an own self-descriptive tool) which asks about different emotion regulation strategies, has also been included in this research.

METHODS

The investigation--which is a part of a wider project--was conducted in the Clinic of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy Bethel in Bielefeld, Germany. Subjects were 19 patients with diagnosis of BPD and 20 healthy people as a control group. Tools used in the diagnostic part of the research were: Mini--DIPS, SKID II. In order to verify the hypothesis were used: 1. to assess emotion regulation: FrAGe, ERQ, DERS, 2. to assess EI: MSCEIT, TEMINT; 3. for the assessment of general intelligence: LPS--K.

RESULTS

BPD patients reported severe impairments in emotion regulation--there are significant differences between groups in frequency of using the individual strategies of emotional regulation, negative and positive as well--but did not exhibit impairments of ability EI. The results do not prove the dependence between emotion regulation strategies and the global value of EI.

CONCLUSIONS

Emotional dysfunction in BPD might affect a self perceived behaviour of the patients rather than their abilities: patients seems to possess a sufficient theoretical knowledge about functioning in the emotional context.