Autobiographical memory specificity and non-suicidal self-injury in borderline personality disorder

Overgeneral memory (OGM) refers to the tendency to recall categories of events from memory, rather than specific memories, even when it is explicitly instructed to recall specific events. Unlike depressed and traumatized patients, patients diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD) inconsistently show OGM. Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) on the other hand, is very common in patients with BPD. Like OGM, NSSI is considered to be an affect-regulation mechanism. This study investigated how these strategies relate to each other. Based on earlier findings (Startup et al., 2001), we hypothesized that NSSI and OGM would be inversely associated. Fifty three BPD patients completed the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Disorders (Axis II as well as Axis I-mood modules), the Autobiographical Memory Test to assess OGM, and the Self-Injury Questionnaire - Treatment Related (SIQ-TR) to assess NNSI. We found that patients who engage in NSSI do not differ from patients who do not with respect to OGM. However, we found that participants who use more different NSSI methods showed less OGM, but this association disappeared when we controlled for age. We propose a balance-model of affect-regulation as one possible explanation for the relationship between these two affect-regulation behaviours, and discuss the clinical relevance of our findings.status: publishe