Emotional dysregulation and Borderline Personality Disorder: Explaining the link between secondary psychopathy and alexithymia

•We examined variables contributing to the secondary psychopathy and alexithymia link.•Borderline PD and emotional dysregulation helped explain the association.•Secondary and alexithymia were related to similar emotion regulation processes.•Alexithymia, not secondary, was related to lack of emotiona...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPersonality and individual differences Vol. 57; pp. 14 - 19
Main Authors Ridings, Leigh E., Lutz-Zois, Catherine J.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Kidlington Elsevier Ltd 01.01.2014
Elsevier
Subjects
Adult and adolescent clinical studies
Alexithymia
Biological and medical sciences
Borderline Personality Disorder
Emotional dysregulation
Medical sciences
Personality disorders
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychopathology. Psychiatry
Psychopathy
Emotional dysregulation
Borderline Personality Disorder
Psychopathy
Alexithymia
Human
Borderline
Correlation analysis
Psychopathia
Personality
Personality disorder
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Summary:•We examined variables contributing to the secondary psychopathy and alexithymia link.•Borderline PD and emotional dysregulation helped explain the association.•Secondary and alexithymia were related to similar emotion regulation processes.•Alexithymia, not secondary, was related to lack of emotional awareness.•Therapeutic methods like DBT and mindfulness might be useful for these constructs. Research explaining the overlap between psychopathy and alexithymia is in its infancy. A study by Lander, Lutz-Zois, Rye, and Goodnight (2012) revealed a significant positive correlation between secondary, but not primary, psychopathy and alexithymia. However, little is known about what accounts for this differential association. Because both alexithymia (Webb & McMurran, 2008) and secondary psychopathy (Blackburn, 1996) have been linked to Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), the current study sought to determine if emotional processing deficits characteristic of BPD could explain the link between secondary psychopathy and alexithymia. The results supported the hypothesis that BPD would mediate the association between secondary psychopathy and alexithymia. Implications, limitations, and future directions are discussed.
ISSN:0191-8869
1873-3549
DOI:10.1016/j.paid.2013.09.008