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Borderline personality disorder patients may use less effective defense mechanisms
People with borderline personality disorder (BPD) often have trouble dealing with emotions. Defending Against Unpleasant Feelings Borderline personality disorder patients may use less effective defense mechanisms (dailyRx News) People with borderline personality disorder (BPD) often have trouble dealing with emotions. The way people with BPD deal with unpleasant emotions may affect their recovery. A recent study looked at how people with BPD defended against unwanted feelings. Then, they compared BPD patients to people with other personality disorders. People with BPD more often used less helpful defenses. These defenses were linked to longer time to recovery. People with BPD who used humor had shorter recovery times. The authors suggested that therapy…
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New insights into the borderline personality brain
The hallmark symptom that people describe is emotion dysregulation — you’re happy one moment, and the next moment you’re feeling angry or sad or depressed. People with BPD can cycle through emotions, usually negative ones, quite rapidly. New insights into the ‘borderline personality’ brain (link) New work by University of Toronto Scarborough researchers gives the best description yet of the neural circuits that underlie a severe mental illness called Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), and could lead to better treatments and diagnosis. The work shows that brain regions that process negative emotions (for example, anger and sadness) are overactive in people with BPD, while brain regions that would normally help damp…
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Study: Expressing negative emotions could extend lifespan
German researchers just published a study that shows statistically that people who constrain themselves and don’t express anger live on average 2 years shorter than individuals who do. Expressing negative emotions could extend lifespan German researchers just published a study that shows statistically that people who constrain themselves and don’t express anger live on average 2 years shorter than individuals who do. Researchers Marcus Mund and Kristin Mitte at the University of Jena in Germany analyzed data from more than 6,000 patients to find that exhibiting self-restraint and holding back negative emotions could have serious repercussions for a person’s physical and mental well-being – those who internalized their anxiety suffered…
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Study finds Borderline personality, bipolar disorders have similar unemployment rates
Unemployment poses a significant burden on the public no matter what the cause. But for those who have been diagnosed with a psychiatric illness, chronic unemployment is often coupled with significant health care costs. A Rhode Island Hospital study compared unemployment rates among those with various psychiatric disorders, and found that borderline personality disorder is associated with as much unemployment as bipolar disorder. Researcher Mark Zimmerman, M.D., the director of outpatient psychiatry at Rhode Island Hospital, and his colleagues studied unemployment and disability rates in patients with bipolar disorder and depression with borderline personality disorder to determine the level of disability associated with each illness. The study is published in…
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Neuropsychiatric Mechanisms of Change in Mentalization Based Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder (MENTAB)
Fifty female patients diagnosed with BPD, who will undergo a year of intensive Mentalization Based Therapy at the Psychiatric Clinic Roskilde, Denmark, and a matched healthy control subjects matched on age, gender and socioeconomic status. Neuropsychiatric Mechanisms of Change in Mentalization Based Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder (MENTAB) Purpose: Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a complex psychiatric disease of uncertain aetiology and pathogenesis. A key mechanism of disease susceptibility and treatment response could be epigenetic changes in DNA methylation patterns. However, no study has yet demonstrated that psychotherapy can exert its therapeutic effect through epigenetic mechanisms. The main aim of this study is to analyze the promoter methylation pattern of…
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Specific Brain Region Tied to Empathy
Now that we know the specific brain mechanisms associated with empathy, we can translate these findings into disease categories and learn why these empathic responses are deficient in neuropsychiatric illnesses, such as autism. Specific Brain Region Tied to Empathy (read the Article at PsychCentral) By TRACI PEDERSEN Associate News Editor Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on October 26, 2012 An international team of researchers has demonstrated, for the first time, that a particular area of the brain — called the anterior insular cortex — is where human empathy originates. “Now that we know the specific brain mechanisms associated with empathy, we can translate these findings into disease categories and…