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Temperamental and acute symptoms of borderline personality disorder: associations with normal personality traits and dynamic relations over time

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 December 2009

C. J. Hopwood ,
M. B. Donnellan  and
M. C. Zanarini
C. J. Hopwood*
Affiliation:
Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA
M. B. Donnellan
Affiliation:
Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA
M. C. Zanarini
Affiliation:
McLean Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
*
*Address for correspondence: Dr C. J. Hopwood, Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824–1116, USA. (Email: hopwood2@msu.edu)
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Abstract

Background

Recent research suggests the utility of distinguishing temperamental and acute symptoms of borderline personality disorder (BPD). Temperamental symptoms, such as chronic anger and odd thinking, remit relatively slowly and have been hypothesized to reflect a hyperbolic predisposition to emotional pain and negativistic cognitions, whereas acute symptoms, such as substance abuse and chaotic relationships, remit relatively quickly and have been hypothesized to represent the consequences of maladaptations to triggering environmental events.

Method

The relationships of temperamental and acute BPD symptoms with normal personality traits and stability and dynamic associations over time across these symptom sets were tested in a 10-year longitudinal study of 362 patients with personality disorders.

Results

Temperamental symptoms were associated with high neuroticism, whereas acute symptoms were associated with low agreeableness. These symptoms had similar rank-order stabilities and relative changes in symptom sets were reciprocally linked in a cross-lagged path model suggesting dynamic associations between temperamental and acute symptoms over time.

Conclusions

The distinction between temperamental and acute BPD symptoms is supported by differential relations of these symptom sets to normal personality traits. Moreover, these symptoms appear to be linked in a mutually reinforcing dynamic over time. This distinction should be kept in mind in future studies of the aetiology of BPD and in diagnostic and treatment considerations.

Keywords

Borderline personality disordercross-lagged modelfive-factor modelpsychiatric nosologytemperament
Type
Original Articles
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 40 , Issue 11 , November 2010 , pp. 1871 - 1878
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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