Self-Esteem and Coping Strategies in a Sample of Egyptian Patients with Borderline Personality Disorder

Abstract

orderline personality disorder is one of the most common psychiatric disorders encountered in the general population as well as psychiatric settings. It is associated with high psychosocial and socioeconomic costs. BPD is associated with severe functional impairment, substantial treatment use, and high rates of mortality by suicide. Self-esteem is one of the most widely studied topics in modern psychology. It is an important psychological construct because it is a central component of individuals’ daily experience. It refers to how people feel about themselves and reflects and affects their ongoing transactions with their environment and the people they encounter. A few clinical and non-clinical studies suggest that BPD is associated with both impaired and unstable self-esteem. Other studies found that low self-esteem is associated with increased severity of BPD symptoms. Moreover, Self-esteem has been found to be one of the strongest predictors associated with poorer global outcomes and satisfaction with life in patients with BPD. Coping can be defined as, a set of cognitive and behavioural efforts that are applied to address the occurrence of demands considered exceeding to one’s personal resources. Positive coping creates positive feelings that foster improved communication and occupational growth. Furthermore, positive coping can inhibit the emergence of harmful health conditions, and manifest as problem-solving behaviour and positive appraisals, while negative coping can affect a person’s mindset and in return affects his life negatively. Less is known about how BPD patients cope with increased negative affect and stress.