Browsing by Subject "BPD"

The aim of the study. People with a borderline personality disorder (BPD) suffer from problems in their interpersonal relationships and especially in their romantic relationships. Examples of these problems are considerable amounts of conflicts, domestic violence, and fear of abandonment. The aim of this thesis was to find out how BPD-diagnosed females evaluate their relationship satisfaction and what kind of variables can affect their relationship satisfaction. Methods. Literature search was done in PubMed and Google Scholar using keywords: “Borderline personality disorder and relationship satisfaction” and also with specified search using keywords (”Borderline personality disorder” AND ”romantic relationship satisfaction” OR “Borderline personality disorder” AND “romantic relationship quality”). The literature search was limited to the articles published since 2009. Six articles were included in this review. Results and conclusions. According to the literature search, relationship satisfaction is worse in BPD-diagnosed females than in healthy controls. Also the couples, in which the woman is diagnosed with BPD, evaluate their relationship satisfaction to be worse than healthy couples. In cases where the partners do not have any personality disorders, the BPD women evaluate the relationship satisfaction to be worse than their partners. This can be explained by the BPD women’s tendency to evaluate situations with a negativity bias. According to the literature search, insecure attachment style, inability to maintain feelings of closeness and sexual satisfaction seem to affect the BPD people’s relationship satisfaction the most. As relationship satisfaction influences the well-being of couples, it is recommendable that women with BPD and their partners consider participating in, for instance, couple and sex therapy.