Can’t stand the look in the mirror? Self-awareness avoidance in borderline personality disorder

Dorina Winter, Katrin Koplin, Stefanie Lis

Patients with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) expect and perceive social rejection stronger than healthy individuals. Shifting ones attention from oneself to others has been suggested as a mechanism to deal with the experience of social rejection. Here, we investigated whether BPD participants avoid increased self-awareness and whether this is done intentionally. Thirty BPD patients and 30 healthy control participants, all naïve of the study's purpose, were asked to choose either a seat facing a mirror (self-awareness) or not facing the mirror (avoidance of self-awareness). Afterwards they were asked to indicate if they have chosen the seat intentionally. BPD patients avoided as a trend the chair facing the mirror more often than healthy control participants. 90 % of the patients reported that they made their seating decision intentionally in contrast to 26.7 % of the healthy participants (odd ratio = 24.75). Results revealed altered reactions to self-awareness cues in BPD. While BPD patients avoided such a cue slightly more often, they were more often aware of their behavior than healthy participants. As possible explanations, a negative body related, shame-prone self-concept as well as a simultaneously increased degree of self-focused attention are suggested.