[Affective mentalizing in Addictive Borderline Personality: A literature review]

Area of Science:

• Psychiatry
• Psychology
• Mental Health

Background:

• Affective mentalizing, a key aspect of interpreting mental states, is explored in relation to borderline personality disorders (BPD).
• Borderline addictive personality conceptualizes a clinical entity merging addiction and borderline personality traits, distinct from mere comorbidity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review conceptualizations and evaluations of affective mentalizing.
• To examine mentalization psychopathology, its etiology, and consequences in BPD.
• To propose an examination of affective mentalizing within the proposed concept of Borderline Addictive Personality.

Main Methods:

• Literature review of affective mentalizing, mentalization psychopathology, and BPD.
• Discussion of hierarchical models like Élaboration verbale de l'affect (EVA) and methodologies such as Grille de l'élaboration verbale de l'affect (GEVA).
• Integration of findings on mentalization failure, its environmental etiology, and developmental models.

Main Results:

• Mentalization failure is a significant factor in BPD, with largely environmental etiology.
• A bidirectional interaction exists between mentalization failure and addiction, though not typically integrated in PD research.
• The concept of Borderline Addictive Personality suggests a unified clinical entity beyond comorbidity.

Conclusions:

• Affective mentalizing is essential for understanding and treating individuals with BPD.
• Further research is needed to explore the distinct clinical entity of Borderline Addictive Personality and its unique mentalization patterns.
• Integrating addiction as a core factor in mentalization research for personality disorders is warranted.