The relationship between non-suicidal self-injury and alexithymia in borderline personality disorder: “Actions instead of words”

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a serious mental illness that centers on the inability to effectively regulate emotions. A large amount of BPD patients engage in non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI). Given the NSSI contributes to serious health risks, it is important to know why some BPD patients engage in NSSI and others do not. A possible associated factor of NSSI in BPD may be alexithymia, which reflects difficulties in identifying and communicating feelings. Therefore the aim of the present study was to investigate whether NSSI was associated with alexithymia and whether this association still stood when controlling for gender and depression. The current study explored the relationship between NSSI and alexithymia in 185 BPD patients by means of the Self-Injury Questionnaire-Treatment Related and the Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20 (TAS). Of the 185 BPD inpatients, 82.7% reported life-time NSSI, of whom 52.9% were still engaging in current NSSI; and 71.3% scored in the alexithymic range (cut-off score ≥ 61). Current NSSI was significantly associated with TAS-total. Additionally, when considering the separate TAS subscales Difficulties Describing Feelings (DDF), Difficulties Identifying Feelings (DIF) and Externally Oriented Thinking (EOT), only DDF was significantly associated with NSSI, even after controlling for gender and depression. These results suggest that NSSI in BPD patients is associated with alexithymia. More specific, difficulties describing feelings can lead to NSSI, independently of the depressive status of the BPD patient. The implications for clinical treatment of self-injurious BPD patients will be discussed.