Panel Discussion 12 - At the Borderline of Change: Revisiting and Revamping Our Conception of Borderline Personality Disorder

THIS SUBMISSION SPONSORED BY THE NEWLY FORMED PERSONALITY/PERSONALITY DISORDERS SIG
Since the 1980s, work on borderline personality disorder (BPD) has flourished. Originally framed as psychopathology between psychosis and neurosis, then as an untreatable problem, and almost always through a pejorative lens (Masland et al., 2021), the BPD diagnosis has come a long way. BPD is now seen as treatable, and several formulations of BPD have been tested. Linehan’s (1993) biosocial model is a particularly prominent theory of BPD in which emotion dysregulation forms the core of the disorder. However, burgeoning research shows that people with BPD do not uniformly exhibit pervasive emotion dysregulation. After decades of progress the field is facing a familiar question: What is BPD? Unlike several decades ago, there are now many potential evidence-based answers.
This panel brings together experts who have recently authored key works on the nature of BPD. Dr. Aidan Wright proposed that BPD is best distinguished from other conditions by interpersonal dysfunction and should be re-conceptualized as an interpersonal disorder (Wright et al., 2022). Dr. Shannon Sauer-Zavala has advanced that BPD is a heterogeneous expression of core personality functioning (Sauer-Zavala et al., 2022) that frequently presents as an emotional disorder (Sauer-Zavala & Barlow, 2014). Dr. Katherine Dixon-Gordon has suggested that BPD may be characterized by unique deficits in interpersonal emotion regulation processes (Dixon-Gordon et al., 2015). Finally, Dr. Skye Fitzpatrick has outlined a dyadic model of BPD centered on sensitization to interpersonal threat leading to heightened emotional reactivity (Fitzpatrick et al., 2021).
Moderated by a leading expert in emotional processes in BPD and its treatment (Dr. Matt Southward), panelists will focus on three key questions:
1) What is BPD? 2) How do our understandings of BPD inform how it can be most effectively treated? 3) What are key future research directions to advance our understanding of BPD? Throughout, we will note how a history of stigmatization has limited efforts to understand and intervene on BPD and highlight how future efforts to further de-stigmatize BPD can promote a more hopeful, empirically-based approach to this condition.