The proposed research tests Linehan's (1993) theory that Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a disorder of pervasive emotion dysregulation. Linehan defines emotion dysregulation as high sensitivity and intense responding to emotional stimuli across various contexts. In this study, physiological measures of respiratory sinus arrhvthmia (RSA), skin conductance (SC), and self-report will be used to investigate if BPD individuals show indications of pervasive emotion dysregulation by exhibiting heightened emotional responses across multiple emotions and multiple contexts. Participants will engage m a personally-relevant audiotape task (context 1) in which they will hear a description of a time when they felt afraid, angry, sad, and no emotion, and a standardized task (context 2) where they view standardized fear, anger, sad, and neutral films. It is predicted that, at baseline, BPD and GAD patients will show indications of emotional sensitivity compared with normal controls. When exposed to the personally-relevant and standardized fear inductions, it is predicted that the BPD and GAD groups will exhibit increased emotional responding compared to normal controls. However, when exposed to the personally-relevant and standardized anger and sadness inductions, it is expected that the BPD group will exhibit higher emotional responding than both GAD and normal control groups, thus indicating evidence of pervasive emotion dysregulation This study is the first to study emotion dysregulation in BPD using both sympathetic and parasympathic (i.e., vagal tone) physiological measures in addition to self-report. ? ?

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Type
Predoctoral Individual National Research Service Award (F31)
Project #
1F31MH068887-01A1
Application #
6837865
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZRG1-BBBP-G (21))
Program Officer
Chavez, Mark
Project Start
2004-09-16
Project End
2007-09-15
Budget Start
2004-09-16
Budget End
2005-09-15
Support Year
1
Fiscal Year
2004
Total Cost
$31,575
Indirect Cost
Name
University of Washington
Department
Psychology
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
605799469
City
Seattle
State
WA
Country
United States
Zip Code
98195