Empathy Paradox and Borderline Personality Disorder

Order The Borderline Personality Disorder Workbook by Dr. Fox: https://goo.gl/LQEgy1

There are many paradoxes associated with BPD. A paradox is something that is self-contradictory. Those who have BPD have a tendency to experience something called the empathy paradox. The empathy paradox, for individuals with BPD, is that they are good at reading emotions in others due to paying extra attention to what’s going on in their environment and the people in it, but this information gets distorted along the way causing the individual with BPD to misinterpret those emotions as negative which leads to a greater likelihood of reacting negatively in situations. Also, the greater degree of the felt need for rapid response, the greater the impairment.

Research shows that those with BPD do possess enhanced empathic skills. Individuals with BPD have an increased sensitivity to negatively perceive emotional stimuli, and that this leads to a reduced ability to stop, think, determine best outcome, and then react that impairs self-control and performance, especially in tasks requiring quick responses. It also leads to a higher tendency to feel overwhelmed, a common feeling for those with BPD.

Individuals with BPD have a tendency to perceive and respond to internal urges that are a mixture of learned distrust of others that disrupts the ability to develop lasting and stable mental pictures of how you see and evaluate people in your mind, which leads to chronic social dysfunction. This history of learned inconsistency drives individuals with BPD to react as though they're going to be disrespected, hurt, abandoned or all 3.

What can you do about it? When you recognize emotions in others, stop and remind yourself of that negative tendency, look for environmental evidence to support or disprove what you’re feeling and interpreting, then reassess, and determine best outcome.

Slow and steady wins the race here, not rapid pace to this finish. The tortoise wins, not the hare.

Daniel J. Fox, Ph.D., is a licensed psychologist in Texas, international speaker, and award winning author. He has been specializing in the treatment and assessment of individuals with personality disorders for over 15 years in the state and federal prison system, universities, and in private practice. His specialty areas include personality disorders, ethics, burnout prevention, and emotional intelligence.

He has published several articles in these areas and is the author of:

The Borderline Personality Disorder Workbook: An Integrative Program to Understand and Manage Your BPD. Available May 1, 2019, but you can pre-order it now at: https://goo.gl/LQEgy1

Antisocial, Borderline, Narcissistic and Histrionic Workbook: Treatment Strategies for Cluster B Personality Disorders (IPBA Benjamin Franklin Gold Award Winner): https://goo.gl/BLRkFy

Narcissistic Personality Disorder Toolbox: 55 Practical Treatment Techniques for Clients, Their Parents & Their Children: https://goo.gl/sZYhym
The Clinician’s Guide to Diagnosis and Treatment of Personality Disorders: https://goo.gl/ZAVe9v

Dr. Fox has given numerous workshops and seminars on ethics and personality disorders, personality disorders and crime, treatment solutions for treating clients along the antisocial, borderline, narcissistic, and histrionic personality spectrum, emotional intelligence, managing mental health within the prison system, and others. Dr. Fox maintains a website of various treatment interventions focused on working with and attenuating the symptomatology related to individuals along the antisocial, borderline, narcissistic, and histrionic personality spectrum (www.drdfox.com).

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Amazon Author’s Page: amazon.com/author/drfox

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Citation:

Dinsdale, Natalie & Crespi, Bernard. (2013). The Borderline Empathy Paradox: Evidence and Conceptual Models for Empathic Enhancements in Borderline Personality Disorder. Journal of personality disorders. 27. 172-95. 10.1521/pedi.2013.27.2.172.