UCL Discovery
UCL home » Library Services » Electronic resources » UCL Discovery

Impaired mentalizing in depression and the effects of borderline personality disorder on this relationship

Rifkin-Zybutz, RP; Moran, P; Nolte, T; Feigenbaum, J; King-Casas, B; Fonagy, P; Montague, RP; (2021) Impaired mentalizing in depression and the effects of borderline personality disorder on this relationship. Borderline Personality Disorder and Emotion Dysregulation , 8 , Article 15. 10.1186/s40479-021-00153-x. Green open access

[thumbnail of Fonagy_s40479-021-00153-x.pdf]
Preview
Text
Fonagy_s40479-021-00153-x.pdf - Published Version

Download (610kB) | Preview

Abstract

Background: Mentalizing, the ability to understand the self and others as well as behaviour in terms of intentional mental states, is impaired in Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). Evidence for mentalizing deficits in other mental disorders, such as depression, is less robust and these links have never been explored while accounting for the effects of BPD on mentalizing. Additionally, it is unknown whether BPD symptoms might moderate any relationship between depressive symptoms and mentalizing. / Methods: Using multivariate regression modelling on cross-sectional data obtained from a sample of 274 participants recruited from clinical settings, we investigated the association between mentalizing impairment and depression and examined whether this was moderated by the presence and number of concurrent BPD symptoms, while adjusting for socio-demographic confounders. / Results: Impaired mentalizing was associated with depressive symptoms, after adjustment for socio-demographic confounders and BPD symptoms (p = 0.002, β = − 0.18). BPD symptoms significantly moderated the association between impaired mentalizing and depressive symptoms (p = 0.003), with more severe borderline symptoms associated with a stronger effect of poor mentalization on increased depressive symptoms. / Conclusion: Mentalizing impairments occur in depression even after adjusting for the effect of BPD symptoms. Our findings help further characterise mentalizing impairments in depression, as well as the moderating effect of BPD symptoms on this association.. Further longitudinal work is required to investigate the direction of association.

Type: Article
Title: Impaired mentalizing in depression and the effects of borderline personality disorder on this relationship
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1186/s40479-021-00153-x
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1186/s40479-021-00153-x
Language: English
Additional information: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
Keywords: Mentalization, BPD, Depression
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences > Clinical, Edu and Hlth Psychology
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10127241
Downloads since deposit
36Downloads
Download activity - last month
Download activity - last 12 months
Downloads by country - last 12 months

Archive Staff Only

View Item View Item