The Relationship Between Borderline Personality Disorder And Emotional Intelligence
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is designated as a cluster B personality disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-V). The DSM-V divides its 10 named personality disorders into three distinct clusters:
- Cluster A: Cluster A personality disorders generally include personality disorders where the primary traits are viewed as odd or eccentric by other people. Cluster A disorders include paranoid, schizoid, and schizotypal personality disorders.
- Cluster B: Cluster B personality disorders are typically defined as disorders involving overly dramatic or emotional behavior that can be perceived as unstable or unpredictable. Cluster B disorders include antisocial, narcissistic, histrionic, and borderline personality disorders.
- Cluster C: Cluster C personality disorders are classified as conditions that may lead a person to behave in a primarily anxious or fearful manner. Cluster C disorders include avoidant, dependent, and obsessive-compulsive personality disorders.
Borderline personality disorder is usually characterized by impulsive behavior, an unstable sense of self that is typically associated with low self-esteem and unpredictable actions, turbulent interpersonal relationships, and extreme emotional or temperamental vulnerability, often manifesting in high levels of emotion dysregulation. Most personality disorders are associated with poor mental health outcomes, but borderline personality disorder appears to be associated with particularly high rates of suicidality and self-harm. It can be important for those experiencing symptoms of BPD to seek professional help through therapy.
What is emotional intelligence?
Researchers have defined emotional intelligence as “the capacity of an individual to process emotional information to facilitate social functioning and improve cognitive activities.” Emotional intelligence typically comprises perceiving, using, managing, and understanding the emotions of oneself and others.
People with high levels of emotional intelligence can usually:
- Recognize and label their own feelings
- Be aware of other people’s feelings and adjust their responses to such emotions accordingly
- Regulate emotions, both positive and negative, without resorting to maladaptive coping mechanisms like substance use, self-harm, reckless behavior, or other numbing actions
- Communicate their positive and negative emotions to other people in a way that is authentic and leads to stronger interpersonal relationships
Increased levels of emotional intelligence typically contribute to a number of positive life impacts. Emotional intelligence tends to be positively correlated with the following:
- Life satisfaction
- Happiness
- Ability to form close relationships with other people, which is associated with multiple improved health outcomes
- Subjective sense of well-being
- Self-control
- More adaptive coping styles, i.e., experiencing a negative emotion and journaling about it in an attempt to understand it better, as opposed to drinking alcohol to numb it
Psychology researchers often divide emotional intelligence into different categories. Some aspects of emotional intelligence may be areas a person can actively work on and improve over time. However, some psychologists also argue for the existence of what is known as trait emotional intelligence, or “people’s beliefs about their emotions.”
How is emotional intelligence impacted by borderline personality disorder?
Researchers have long studied the connection between emotional intelligence and borderline personality disorder. Although updated evidence may be necessary, one seminal study published in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease in 2013 found that patients with BPD usually had an impaired ability to understand emotions as compared to people without personality disorder diagnoses and people with diagnoses of other personality disorders. Additionally, BPD traits usually impaired patients’ abilities not just to understand other people’s emotions, but to regulate their own.
One of the defining features of BPD can be experiencing high levels of emotion dysregulation. Psychologists typically understand emotion dysregulation as being split into:
- Lack of emotion modulation: Being unable to manage one’s emotions
- High levels of emotional vulnerability: Consistently experiencing emotional instability and being extremely sensitive to any kind of emotional stimuli
Emotion dysregulation can have significant impacts on daily life, which may help to explain the impaired functioning often experienced by people with BPD. This kind of dysregulation can make it difficult for a person to accomplish both daily tasks and larger goals, and, perhaps more significantly, may make it complicated for a person to adapt their behavior to different situations, which can be a key component of emotional intelligence.
BPD patients typically demonstrate additional deficits in the following areas of emotional intelligence:
- Self-awareness
- Control of their own emotions and emotional expressions
- Motivating oneself, particularly when experiencing a negative emotional state
- Having empathy for other people and comprehending other people’s emotional experiences
- Integrating their emotions, or understanding what has caused their emotions and that their emotions are temporary, will pass, and do not define them
- Identifying other people’s emotions (this deficit may extend to a reduced capability to recognize facial expressions demonstrating negative emotions)
- Lack of ability to self-soothe, which may result in a sensation of chronic emptiness
Some psychologists have even theorized that decreased levels of emotional intelligence may contribute to the higher incidences of self-harm in people with BPD (up to 90% of people with BPD engage in some form of self-harm). It is possible that it might be more difficult for people with BPD to distinguish between emotional pain and physical pain, so physical self-harm may be an unhealthy coping mechanism resulting from that tension.
Finding support for living with borderline personality disorder
Although much of the research related to emotional intelligence and borderline personality disorder can portray the condition as particularly bleak, it is possible to recover from the impacts of BPD. Therapeutic interventions like dialectical behavior therapy can be effective in decreasing BPD symptoms and increasing overall quality of life.
For a person with BPD who also experiences difficulties with understanding and regulating emotions, attending a therapy appointment in person may be an additional source of stress. In these situations, online therapy may be a more accessible option. With online therapy through an accredited platform like BetterHelp, clients can attend sessions from the comfort of their homes. They can also choose how they would like to interact with their therapist, with online chat, phone, and video call options available, which may help individuals with BPD be more comfortable with the therapy process.
Research has demonstrated that there may not be any significant differences in efficacy between therapy accessed online and traditional in-person therapy appointments, including in the treatment of personality disorders like BPD. One recent study reviewing different pilot programs for online therapy, including a majority focused on borderline personality disorder, found that, in general, attending therapy online reduces personality disorder symptoms.
Takeaway
Do people with BPD have emotional intelligence?
Emotional intelligence (EI) refers to a person’s ability to regulate their own emotions and interpret the emotions of others. It is typically divided into five key elements: empathy, self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, and social skills. Emotional intelligence is typically measured by investigating two models of EI: trait EI and ability EI. Trait EI is typically assessed through self-report measures and tends to give a picture of a person’s day-to-day emotion processing. In contrast, ability EI is assessed by giving a person a situation where they must use all of their EI abilities, which tends to demonstrate their maximum emotional intelligence capabilities.
Research surrounding those with borderline personality disorder (BPD), affective instability, and emotional intelligence suggests that the disorder can have a significant impact. Results suggest that individuals with BPD demonstrate emotion understanding deficits more often than those with other personality disorders. Researchers also found that people with BPD are capable of emotion regulation, but a negative relationship exists between BPD and total emotional intelligence. However, the relationship disappeared when controlling for each participant's intelligence quotient (IQ).
The present study indicated that BPD is more associated with difficulty understanding emotion, and the temporary severity of the condition is associated with emotional dysregulation. Severity can change based on external factors, meaning that the emotion regulation deficits common in BPD often vary considerably.
Is there a correlation between borderline personality disorder and intelligence?
While some have posited that borderline personality disorder is associated with high intelligence, contemporary research disagrees. One study of individuals with BPD found that the participants’ IQ scores ranged from 86 to 124, similar to the average IQ range (80 - 120). Furthermore, the same study indicated that those with BPD tend to demonstrate borderline intellectual functioning, wherein a person’s IQ is below the average range but not low enough to qualify as a cognitive impairment. Overall, the evidence suggests that those with BPD are likely to span a wide intellectual range.
How do personality disorders relate to emotional intelligence?
Emotional intelligence is typically associated with five factors: empathy, self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, and social skills. While deficits do not always appear in every area, poor emotional functioning is associated with many personality disorders. One study found that those diagnosed with any personality disorder scored significantly lower on measures of emotional intelligence compared to those without a diagnosis, indicating that personality disorders may induce affective instability and poor emotional functioning.
Do people with borderline personality disorder struggle with emotions?
Evidence suggests that those with borderline personality disorder often struggle to perceive emotions of others and regulate emotions within themselves. Many people with BPD report poor affect regulation, meaning they find it challenging to consciously regulate the intensity and type of emotion others can perceive. Research into those with borderline personality disorder note that emotion regulation differences emerged based on the temporary severity of the BPD.
Poor emotion management is one of several maladaptive BPD traits that can impact an individual diagnosed with the condition. In everyday life, people with BPD might struggle to maintain meaningful relationships, demonstrate an unstable sense of self (identity disturbance), or report chronic feelings of emptiness, all of which might contribute to the emotion management component of the disorder’s symptoms.
What hurts a person with BPD the most?
One of the BPD criteria used to diagnose the condition includes “frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment.” A fear of abandonment is one of the characteristic features of the disorder, and it stands to reason that genuine abandonment will hurt a person with BPD the most.
Can people with borderline personality disorder be truly happy?
While the anticipated deficits associated with BPD can certainly have an impact on happiness, there is no evidence to suggest that those with the condition are unable to be truly happy. A person diagnosed with BPD may consider reaching out to mental health professionals for help and guidance in managing their condition without negatively impacting their happiness.
Why is someone with a borderline personality so emotional?
Emotional dysregulation is a common symptom of borderline personality disorder. Researchers are still unsure exactly how dysregulation works within BPD, but evidence suggests that the degree of dysregulation varies considerably from person to person. It can also vary within individuals based on the current severity of their BPD symptoms.
Do people with BPD lack emotional empathy?
Evidence suggests that those with borderline personality disorder often demonstrate lower emotional intelligence scores than those without personality disorders, but there is no evidence to suggest that those with BPD lack empathy. Emotional intelligence is often represented in two categories: ability emotional intelligence and trait emotional intelligence. Trait EI facets are typically assessed through self-report measures, while ability EI factors are typically measured by placing a person in a situation where they are required to use their EI abilities.
Certain trait EI facets are associated with BPD. Trait emotional management is often one of the lowest-scoring categories, indicating that many with BPD do not believe their emotional management skills are on par with others. Those with the condition also commonly report struggling to understand the emotions of others. While this might appear as a lack of empathy in some settings, those with BPD are likely capable of empathy once they understand another’s emotional state. Poor trait EI measurement may also make it difficult to categorize those with BPD accurately. Poor trait measurement may lead to scores that do not sufficiently represent the emotional processing capabilities of those with the condition.
Are people with borderline personality disorder highly intelligent?
Although it is a persistent rumor, there is little or no evidence suggesting that those with borderline personality disorder are more intelligent than their peers. A recent study investigating the intellectual ability of those with personality disorders found an IQ range of 86 - 124, which is on par with the average range for a typical adult.
What is the superpower of borderline personality disorder?
Those with borderline personality disorder tend to feel emotions more intensely than others. While that may seem like a deficit, learning to control and perceive those emotional cues can give someone with BPD an emotional processing strength relative to their peers. Those with BPD may be more sensitive and perceptive, especially regarding emotional situations, allowing them to understand emotional context far better than many other people.
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