Self-concept structure and borderline personality disorder: evidence for negative compartmentalization.

Background And Objectives: Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is characterized by an unstable and incongruent self-concept. However, there is a dearth of empirical studies investigating self-concept in BPD. In order to bridge this research gap, the purpose of this study was to apply an in-depth analysis of structural aspects of the self-concept in BPD.

Methods: We examined the degree of compartmentalization, i.e., a tendency to organize knowledge about the self into discrete, extremely valenced (i.e., either positive or negative) categories (Showers, 1992).

Results: We hypothesized and found that BPD patients had the most compartmentalized self-concept structure and a higher proportion of negative self-attributes relative to both a non-clinical and a depressed control group. Moreover, BPD patients rated negative self-aspects as more important than positive ones relative to non-clinical controls.

Limitations: We cannot determine whether causal relationships exist between psychological symptoms and self-concept structure. Moreover, further comparisons to patients with other psychiatric disorders are necessary in order to further confirm the clinical specificity of our results.

Conclusions: Our findings indicate that a negative compartmentalized self-concept is a specific feature of BPD. Implications for future research, psychological assessment, and psychotherapeutic treatment are discussed.