Attachment Styles and Active Schema Modes among Patients of Borderline Personality Disorder

Abstract

Borderline personality disorder(BPD) is a personality disorder and is usually remains undiagnosed among other psychiatric disorders for displaying mimicry of severe symptoms from other psychiatric conditions .The present research attempts to identify different possible relationship of BPD with childhood experiences and parental attachment .It investigates the role of dysfunctional “Young’s Schema Modes” acquired by individuals suffering from BPD and to determine their attachment styles with parents and significant others. A sample of 50 individuals (25 borderline personality disorder patients and 25 normal individuals) completed questionnaires that included Experiences in closed relationship questionnaire (Fraley, Waller, & Brennan, 2000) and Schema mode inventory (Lobbestael, Van Vreeswijk & Arntz, 2007). The reliability of Experiences in close relationship questionnaire was.91 and .94, respectively, for the Anxiety and Avoidance subscales and schema mode inventory was .60 -.89. The data was analyzed using correlation and t-test. Result indicated that attachment styles are significantly positively correlated with dysfunctional schema modes (r=.56, p<.05) and anxious attachments (Mean difference = -25.72) with parents and significant others. Further results also indicated significant demographic variables positively related to BPD as compared to normal individuals. In the end, some limitations of the study were mentioned with plausible suggestions.