PhD Scientific Days 2022

Mental Health Sciences II. (Poster discussion will take place in the Aula during the Coffee Break)

Body image and body schema in borderline personality disorder

Text of the abstract

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a disease that affects personality structure. It affects the patient's self-image, which includes the body image. The association between BPD and body dysmorphic disorder is particularly common. The first elements that shape the structure of a personality are thought to develop at a very early stage in life. Most people agree that the initial elements of personality development may be closely related to body-related experiences and movements. The mental imaging that emerges from these experiences is the body schema.
According to this, we hypothesized that in BPD, as it is a structural disorder affecting personality structure, we will not only find negative attitudeto their body, but we will also find differences in body schemas compared to healthy individuals.
Our study included 31 patients diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (25 women, 6 men) and 30 healthy individuals (19 women and 11 men) (the mean age of both groups was 29 years). The SCID-5-PD semi-structured interview was used to determine personality disorder. Attitude to the body, on the other hand, was measured using the Body Attitude Test. The body schema was measured with the Body Representation task.
Attitude to body differed significantly in the direction of a more negative attitude in all three test factors compared to the control group (negative assessment of body size: t (54) = 4.343; p <0.01; 95% CI = [.752; 2.031], lack of knowledge of one's own body: t (54) = 2.709, p = 0.014, 95% CI = [.089; .677], satisfaction with general body: t (54) = 4.394, p = 0.002, 95% CI = [.756; 2.08]). Patient group members were more misled in both the open and closed eye task. We found a greater difference in favor of the borderline group in terms of open-eye body contour (t (54) = 2.765, p = 0.014; 95% CI = [.59; 3.609]) and closed-eye body contour (t (54) = 2.114, p = 0.044; 95% CI = [. 24; 3,472]) and in terms of the sum of points in case of closed eye condition (t (54) = 2.218, p = 0.030; 95% CI = [. 272; 3.88]) and opened-eyed condition (t (54) = 3.072). , p = 0.003; 95% CI = [1.062; 4.352]).
Based on the results, the body image of borderline patients appears to be significantly different from healthy ones at both the attitudinal and perceptual levels.