Borderline personality disorder in adolescents: affective and cognitive features

Abstract

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.