Borderline Personality Disorder, Body Modification, and Emotional Regulation

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a psychological disorder characterized by impulsivity, disturbed self-image, and mood instability. One feature of BPD includes suicidal or self-mutilating behaviors. Self-mutilating behavior, known as non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI), has been found to correlate with the total number of body modifications obtained by individuals with BPD. Body modification refers to the practice of obtaining tattoos and piercings. Prior research has established a connection between NSSI and higher levels of emotional dysregulation. Considering the association between NSSI and body modification in BPD patients, it is possible that a similar relationship will be found between emotional dysregulation and body modification due to this common connection with NSSI. For this study, we investigated the relationship between BPD symptomatology, body modification, and emotional regulation. We hypothesized that individuals with a greater extent of body modifications would express heightened levels of BPD symptomology, and that individuals with greater BPD symptomatology would be more likely to report emotional regulation and emotional expression as important reasons in their decision to obtain body modifications. Additionally, we hypothesized that craving for NSSI would predict craving for further body modifications. Participants were provided with a survey initially evaluating their BPD symptomatology, craving for NSSI, and emotional regulation abilities. If a participant reported having body modifications, they were also asked to respond to prompts about their craving level for more body modifications and their reasoning for obtaining body modifications. We found no clear relationship between extent of tattooing (number of tattoos and percentage of body surface covered) and BPD symptomatology, but number of piercings did predict BPD symptomatology. In agreement with our hypotheses, we found that individuals with higher BPD symptomatology were more likely to report emotional regulation and emotional expression as motivations for obtaining body modifications, and NSSI craving scores significantly predicted body modification craving scores.