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Emotional Dysregulation And Borderline Personality Disorder: Explaining The Link Between Secondary Psychopathy And Alexithymia, Leigh Elizabeth Ridings, Catherine J. Lutz-Zois

Psychology Faculty Publications

Research explaining the overlap between psychopathy and alexithymia is in its infancy. A study by Lander, Lutz-Zois, Rye, and Goodnight (2012) revealed a significant positive correlation between secondary, but not primary, psychopathy and alexithymia. However, little is known about what accounts for this differential association. Because both alexithymia (Webb & McMurran, 2008) and secondary psychopathy (Blackburn, 1996) have been linked to Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), the current study sought to determine if emotional processing deficits characteristic of BPD could explain the link between secondary psychopathy and alexithymia. The results supported the hypothesis that BPD would mediate the association between secondary …