Borderline personality disorder in adolescents: affective and cognitive features.

OBJECTIVE

To examine systematically the affective and cognitive features of borderline personality disorder (BPD) in adolescence, using standardized measures of these constructs and controlling for depression.

METHOD

Nineteen depressed female adolescents with BPD were compared with 21 non-BPD depressed inpatients on measures of affect and cognitive style.

RESULTS

Both BPD and non-BPD adolescents endorsed significantly elevated levels of self-reported depression, anger, anxiety, hopelessness, self-deprecatory attributional style, and external locus of control. Adolescents with BPD endorsed significantly poorer self-concept than their non-BPD peers; this difference was not an artifact of depressive severity.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings indicate that adolescents with BPD experience significant impairments in self-concept, suggestive of pervasive emptiness and identity disturbance associated with BPD.