Grant: Master's Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a mental disorder characterized by severe emotional, behavioural, and interpersonal dysregulation, and is associated with intensive and costly health-care service utilization, suicidality, and aggressive behaviours. Interpersonal dysfunction, in particular, is hypothesized to be a core feature of BPD as it tends to be both enduring and heavily endorsed. Although the relationship between interpersonal dysfunction and anger dysregulation, another feature of BPD, is well-studied in non-clinical populations, it has not yet been explored in the clinical BPD population. My study will seek to fill this gap in the literature, and examine how changes in anger dysregulation through therapy impact interpersonal dysfunction for people with BPD. I will investigate this question using data already collected from a CIHR-supported study, where individuals with borderline personality disorder completed self-report questionnaires at 3 month intervals over the course of dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT). Currently, the wait times to receive DBT can be up to 12 months. By investigating how anger dysregulation improvements impact interpersonal dysfunction improvements, my research can influence future treatment development, and lead to more targeted interventions which help reduce wait times.