A featured recent post in the BPS Research Digest
People with borderline personality disorder (BPD) are emotionally fragile, impulsive, suffer from low mood, have intense unstable personal relationships and – according to a handful of studies – they also have enhanced empathy.
But new research by Judith Flury and colleagues shows the idea that BPD patients have enhanced empathy is a spurious finding reflecting the methodological design of prior studies combined with the fact BPD patients are particularly difficult to read.
FLURY, J., ICKES, W., SCHWEINLE, W. (2008). The borderline empathy effect: Do high BPD individuals have greater empathic ability? Or are they just more difficult to “read”? Journal of Research in Personality, 42(2), 312-332. DOI: 10.1016/j.jrp.2007.05.008
