title: Emotional hyperreactivity in response to childhood abuse by primary caregivers in patients with borderline personality disorder.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  One of the core postulated features of borderline personality disorder (BPD) is extreme emotional reactivity to a wide array of evocative stimuli. Findings from previous experimental research however are mixed, and some theories suggest specificity of hyper emotional responses, as being related to abuse, rejection and abandonment only.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The current experiment examines the specificity of emotional hyperreactivity in BPD.
  
  
  METHODS
  The impact of four film clips (BPD-specific: childhood abuse by primary caregivers; BPD-nonspecific: peer bullying; positive; and neutral) on self-reported emotional affect was assessed in three female groups; BPD-patients (n = 24), cluster C personality disorder patients (n = 17) and non-patient controls (n = 23).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Results showed that compared to the neutral film clip, BPD-patients reacted with more overall negative affect following the childhood abuse clip, and with more anger following the peer bullying clip than the two other groups.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The current study was restricted to assessment of the impact of evocative stimuli on self-reported emotions, and the order in which the film clips were presented to the participants was fixed.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Results suggest that BPD-patients only react generally excessively emotional to stimuli related to childhood abuse by primary caregivers, and with excessive anger to peer-bullying stimuli. These findings are thus not in line with the core idea of general emotional hyperreactvity in BPD.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Psychological Science, Maastricht University, PO Box 616, 6200, MD, Maastricht, The Netherlands. Electronic address: Jill.Lobbestael@maastrichtuniversity.nl.
authors.forename: Jill
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lobbestael
authors.affiliation: Programme Group Clinical Psychology, Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences, University of Amsterdam, Weesperplein 4, 1018, XA, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Electronic address: A.R.Arntz@uva.nl.
authors.forename: Arnoud
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Arntz
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000786:Anger / Q000502:physiology; D001883:Borderline Personality Disorder / Q000503:physiopathology*; D058445:Bullying; D017028:Caregivers; D002648:Child; D002649:Child Abuse / Q000523:psychology*; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D010379:Peer Group
keywords: Abandonment; Borderline personality disorder; Childhood abuse; Emotional hyperreactivity; Peer-bullying; Primary caregivers