Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a challenging problem. Early maladaptive schemas (EMSs) are considered as important vulnerability factors for the development and maintenance of BPD. Literature suggests a complex relationship between BPD and EMSs. The current study employed network analysis to model the complex associations between central BPD features (i.e., affective instability, identity problems, negative relations, and self‐harm) and EMSs in 706 undergraduate students. The severity of BPD symptoms was assessed using the Personality Assessment Inventory—Borderline subscale; the Young Schema Questionnaire—Short Form was used to assess EMSs. Results suggest that specific EMSs show unique associations with different BPD features. Interestingly, affective instability showed no unique associations with EMSs. Identity problems were uniquely associated with abandonment, insufficient self‐control, dependence/incompetence, and vulnerability to harm/illness schemas. Negative relations in BPD showed unique connections with mistrust/abuse and abandonment. Finally, BPD self‐harm was connected to emotional deprivation and failure. These findings indicate potential pathways between EMSs and specific BPD features that could improve our understanding of BPD theoretically and clinically.

Purpose: Caregivers' responses to pain behaviors of patients with chronic pain have an essential role in how patients perceive their pain condition. The current study investigated the mediating role of pain catastrophizing on the link between perceived caregiver responses and patient pain behaviors. Materials and Methods: The sample of this cross-sectional study consisted of 200 patients with chronic pain (mean of age = 44.6; 71.5% were female). Participants responded to measures assessing their perception of their caregiver responses to their pain, their pain catastrophizing thoughts, and their pain behaviors. Results: The mediation analyses showed that perceived distracting responses were negatively related to pain catastrophizing level in patients, which in turn was positively associated with expressing pain behaviors. Besides, perceived caregiver negative responses were positively associated with catastrophizing thoughts, which in turn was positively related to expressing pain behaviors. Conclusion: Patients' perceptions regarding how their caregiver responds to their pain condition can be related to their thoughts about their pain and how they react to their pain situation. Investigating the external sources that might have an impact on patients' reactions to their pain, especially when those external sources are caregivers who, in most situations, are with the patients for a prolonged duration, is essential.

Introduction: Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is considered as a chronic mental disorder accompanied by emotion dysregulation, dysfunctional interpersonal relationships, and self-injury. Despite a wealth of research on the neurocognitive process in BPD, there is no studies provide evidence for associations between BPD, RS, ARS, attention bias, and working memory (WM) functions. The present study aimed to investigate relationships between emotional WM operations, attention bias, rejection sensitivity, rumination, and BPD symptomatology; and compare BPD individuals with and without NSSI on these mentioned variables. Methods: A sample of 39 participants with BPD + NSSI, 47 with BPD-NSSI, and 46 healthy participants were selected. The research tools included the Rejection Sensitivity Questionnaire (RSQ), Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II), Anger Rumination Scale (ARS). All participants performed an emotional two-back task, and the dot-probe task. Results: The more significant levels of borderline pathology, anger rumination, and rejection sensitivity were related to slower discarding angry and pain stimuli from WM and a higher level of attention bias to anger and pain. The obtained results revealed that people with BPD symptoms with and without NSSI show attention bias to anger and pain stimuli and are notably slower at discarding angry and pain stimuli from WM. BPD patients with NSSI were also slower at entering happy stimuli into WM compared to the other groups. Conclusion: This study's findings could point to a deficit in AB and WM operations to anger and pain cues that can help clinicians and researchers, make interventions for improving these cognitive dysfunctions in people with BPD with and without NSSI.

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