Hypervigilance in patients with borderline personality disorder: specificity, automaticity, and predictors.
According to cognitive theory, an important factor in borderline personality disorder (BPD) is hypervigilance. The aim of the present study was to test whether BPD patients show schema-related biases, and to explore relations with childhood trauma, schemas, and BPD symptoms. Sixteen BPD patients were compared with 18 patients with a cluster C personality disorder, 16 patients with an axis I disorder, and 16 normal controls. An emotional Stroop task was applied with schema-related and unrelated, negative and positive, supra- and subliminal person-related stimuli. BPD patients showed hypervigilance for both negative and positive cues, but were specifically biased towards schema-related negative cues. Predictors were BPD schemas, childhood sexual traumas, and BPD anxiety symptoms. Both BPD and axis I disorder patients showed a trend for a bias for negative schema-related subliminal stimuli. More attention to hypervigilance in BPD is recommended for clinical practice.
Sieswerda
Simkje
S
Department of Medical, Clinical, and Experimental Psychology, Maastricht University, P.O. Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands. simkje.sieswerda@mp.unimaas.nl
Arntz
Arnoud
A
Mertens
Ingrid
I
Vertommen
Stefaan
S
D000328:Adult; D001143:Arousal; D001883:Borderline Personality Disorder / Q000209:etiology / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D002648:Child; D002649:Child Abuse / Q000523:psychology; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011594:Psychometrics; D013360:Subliminal Stimulation