Federici, A. (2009). Dialectical Behavior Therapy for the Treatment of Eating Disorders. NEDIC, NEDIC Eating Disorders Bulletin.

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- Emotional dysregulation refers to an individual’s inability to cope with feelings of discomfort. As a result, they are often highly sensitive, or what Linehan calls super-feelers, are unable to express their feelings, and turn to unhealthy coping mechanisms to gain a sense of comfort (Federici, 2009). 

- In borderline personality disorder (BPD), Marsha Linehan makes it clear that emotion dysregulation is “the core difficulty in BPD” (Lee et al., 2023). However, according to Lee et al. (2023), emotional dysregulation is not a primary symptom in BPD; rather, it begins to slowly manifest in certain conditions of the child’s temperament and home/environment. It is for these reasons that Linehan developed Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), a type of therapy that focuses on both criteria.

- Eating disorders (ED) symptoms often become a way for individuals to cope with emotional dysregulation. Individuals with eating disorders report that they find it difficult to understand or even report their emotions, and in that way, they act as a threat (Federici, 2009). It appears that self-harming behaviors provide temporary relief. Similar to BPD, emotion dysregulation is a result of both the individual's temperament and their environment. A child who is already confused about the world around them and how they perceive themselves will not react well to a parent who, intentionally or unintentionally, creates doubt within their child about reality (Federici, 2009). Not only do parents create the invalidating environment, but schools, friends, or social media can as well. This is the case, especially for eating disorders, where the world profits off of diet culture.

What is emotional dysregulation, and how does it apply to Borderline Personality and Eating Disorders?

Why do BPD patients use eating pathologies? Ntshingila et al. (2016) brought eight individuals with BPD and attempted to illustrate their experiences more clearly through qualitative data. They address several aspects of BPD, one of them being “emotional upheaval.” The participants were even surprised by their reactions to specific events, as they might be utterly content one moment but rageful and irritable the next. This dissonance in motions left the participants feeling out of control or confused about their emotions. In an attempt to escape these emotions, they engage in self-harming behaviors like cutting or purging. One participant said: “ Then I started cutting. I was so confused, ‘cause I was so angry. I was so emotional. I wanted to die, but I couldn't. It was the only thing at that point that could calm me down” (Ntshingila et al. 2016). And another stated, “I was hopeless; I ended up purging” (Ntshingila et al. 2016). Just like individuals with EDs look to eating disorder behaviors to prevent the dissonance between their emotions, so do individuals with BPD. 

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