PubMed Health⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

H W Koenigsberg

Publications and source records attributed to H W Koenigsberg.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

Are the interpersonal and identity disturbances in the borderline personality disorder criteria linked to the traits of affective instability and impulsivity?

This study examines the degree to which two putative biologically influenced personality traits, affective instability and impulsive aggression, are associated with some of the interpersonal and intrapsychic disturbances of borderline personality disorder (BPD) and with choice of defense mechanism. In a sample of 152 personality disorder patients, affective instability and impulsive aggression were measured. Defense mechanisms were assessed in 140 of these patients using the Defensive Style Questionnaire (DSQ). The correlations between the traits of affective instability and impulsive aggression and the eight DSM-III-R criteria for borderline personality disorder and 20 DSQ defenses were examined. Affective instability was significantly correlated with the DSM-III-R criteria of identity disturbance, chronic emptiness or boredom, inappropriate anger, suicidality, and the affective instability criteria. It also was associated with the defenses of splitting, projection, acting out, passive aggression, undoing, and autistic fantasy. Impulsive aggression was related to unstable interpersonal relationships, inappropriate anger and impulsiveness and with the defense of acting out. It was negatively correlated with the defenses of suppression and reaction formation. A number of the interpersonal and experiential disturbances and defense mechanisms that are features of BPD are associated with the traits of affective instability and impulsive aggression among patients with personality disorders.

Adult↗

Neurotransmitter dysfunction in patients with borderline personality disorder.

Neurotransmitter system dysfunction may contribute to the borderline personality disorder traits of impulsive aggression and affective instability. This article reviews evidence from neurochemical assays, receptor-density studies, neuroendocrine-challenge paradigms, functional neuroimaging studies, and candidate-gene research, which converge to identify particular neurotransmitter systems that seem to be dysregulated in patients with borderline personality disorder.

Acetylcholine↗

Relationship between depression and borderline personality disorder.

The frequent occurrence of depressive symptoms in patients with borderline personality disorder has generated considerable interest in the nature of the relationship between borderline personality disorder and the depressive disorders. Data from the perspectives of phenomenology, biology, family history, course of illness, comorbidity patterns, and treatment response have been brought to bear on the question. Reviews based on research available by 1985 and 1991, respectively, arrived at differing conclusions: (1) that both disorders shared common but non-specific sources, and (2) that the two disorders were unrelated but co-occurred because of the high prevalence of each. Since the time of these reviews, additional evidence has become available from a wider range of biological investigations, better controlled comorbidity studies, studies of the relationship of psychosocial stressors to the course of each disorder and neuroimaging studies. In reviewing the more recent findings, we propose the less parsimonious hypothesis that the disorders co-occur, both because they share some common biological features and because the psychosocial sequella of each can contribute to the development of the other.

Borderline Personality Disorder↗

Can panic be induced in deep sleep? Examining the necessity of cognitive processing for panic.

This study examines the relative contribution of biological and psychological processes to the induction of panic attacks by a biochemical challenge agent. Panicogenic doses of caffeine were administered to 8 panic disorder (PD) patients and 11 healthy volunteers during stage 3-4 sleep, when cognitive processing is minimal and the threshold to external stimuli is high. Panic attacks were induced directly from sleep in 3 subjects and subclinical panics in an additional 3. Subjects who experienced full panic attacks spent periods of time ranging from 4 to 52 minutes in stage 2 sleep before awakening in a panic, while those who awakened in subclinical panic awakened almost directly from stage 4 sleep. PD patients experienced significantly more panic symptoms than healthy volunteers. Although limited by a small sample size, this study suggests a combined biological-psychological model of panic induction in which panic disorder patients are more biologically predisposed than healthy controls to panic symptoms but may require cognitive processing for the elaboration of a full panic attack.

Adolescent↗

Cardiac and respiratory activity in panic disorder: effects of sleep and sleep lactate infusions.

OBJECTIVE: This study examined cardiac and respiratory activity in panic disorder patients and healthy comparison subjects during sleep, when the effects of anxious cognition and expectancy set are minimized. METHOD: Heart rate, respiratory rate, end-tidal PCO2, and oxygen saturation were recorded for 11 panic disorder patients and 12 comparison subjects before and during sleep and before and after infusions of sodium lactate and a saline control. RESULTS: Panic disorder patients had higher oxygen saturations than comparison subjects before sleep onset and during sleep stages 0 and 2 before any infusions. The two groups did not differ on other respiratory variables and heart rate. Panic disorder patients responded to lactate infusions during stage 3-4 sleep with greater increases in heart rate and oxygen saturation, and possibly in respiratory rate and end-tidal PCO2, than comparison subjects. The saline control infusion had little effect. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that panic disorder patients have greater cardiac and respiratory reactivity than healthy comparison subjects during sleep, when the influence of cognitive factors is minimal or absent.

Adolescent↗

Expressed emotion and glucose control in insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus.

To clarify the meaning of the expressed emotion construct by testing its generalizability beyond psychiatric disorders, the authors measured family expressed emotion and glucose control in 35 diabetic patients. The critical comments component of expressed emotion significantly predicted glucose control, suggesting that the expressed emotion construct is not specific to psychiatric patients.

Adolescent↗

The clinical significance of command hallucinations.

Patients with command hallucinations (voices ordering particular acts, often violent or destructive ones) are commonly assumed to be at high risk for dangerous behavior. The authors reviewed 789 consecutive inpatient admissions. Of 151 patients with auditory hallucinations, 58 (38.4%) heard commands. The presence of auditory hallucinations was significantly associated with diagnosis, demographic variables, and use of maximal observation and seclusion. However, patients with command hallucinations were not significantly different from patients without commands on demographic and behavioral variables, including suicidal ideation or behavior and assaultiveness. These findings suggest that command hallucinations alone may not imply greater risk for acute, life-threatening behavior.

Adult↗

The initial contract in the treatment of borderline patients.

The initial treatment contract with a borderline patient recognizes the patient's potential for destructiveness and builds in safeguards. The therapist's effort to protect the treatment mobilizes the patient's primitive defenses. The therapist must be prepared to respond to resistance to the contract by clarification, confrontation, and occasionally interpretation. Although countertransference reactions evoked by the patient's use of primitive defenses complicate the therapist's task of defining the necessary treatment frame, the therapist's recognition of countertransference responses can enable him to establish and enforce an appropriate contract.

Borderline Personality Disorder↗

Expressed emotion: from predictive index to clinical construct.

Expressed emotion, a measure of family attitudes toward psychiatric patients that is predictive of relapse, has attracted renewed attention recently as interest in the chronic psychiatric patient has widened. The authors review the development of the concept and the limits of its meaning. In seeking the core clinical construct underlying the expressed emotion variable, the authors also review recent studies of the relationship of expressed emotion to family interaction patterns, physiological arousal states, precipitants of relapse, and parental personality style. While family intervention studies are necessary to demonstrate that expressed emotion influences outcome in psychiatric patients, methodological limitations in currently available studies leave this issue unresolved.

Adolescent↗

Development of a scale for measuring techniques in the psychotherapy of borderline patients.

Studies of psychodynamic psychotherapy require an instrument to measure the application of the prescribed therapeutic techniques during ongoing treatment. The authors describe the development of such an instrument, the Therapist Verbal Intervention Inventory (TVII), designed specifically for use in the study of the treatment of patients with borderline personality disorders. The TVII was designed, in addition, to test the hypothesis that psychodynamic techniques defined at a middle level of inference could be reliably rated by trained clinicians. The authors present data on the inter-rater reliabilities and inter-rater agreements obtainable with the TVII in the hands of highly experienced clinicians and in the hands of an independent group of junior clinicians trained in its use. The TVII appears to be a potentially useful tool for monitoring psychotherapy techniques in ongoing studies of the treatment of patients with severe personality disorders. Psychiatrists at the advanced resident level or immediate postresidency level have been trained to use the TVII to rate videotaped therapy sessions reliably.

Borderline Personality Disorder↗

The relationship between syndrome and personality disorder in DSM-III: experience with 2,462 patients.

The authors studied the relationship between DSM-III axis I and axis II diagnoses in 2,462 medical center patients. Personality disorders were most commonly associated with substance use disorders and with the anxiety and somatoform disorders traditionally classified as neuroses. There was a particularly strong connection between antisocial personality disorder and substance abuse. The psychotic and major affective illnesses were significantly less often associated with personality disorders. The results of this study suggest a need for refining the criteria for several DSM-III categories. Overall, the separate personality disorder axis in the DSM-III system provides information not contained with the syndromal classification alone.

Adolescent↗

Assaultive behavior among psychiatric outpatients.

Of 2,916 patients evaluated by psychiatric residents in the outpatient clinics of two large private psychiatric hospitals, 3% had manifested recent assaultive behavior toward other persons. In over half the cases the target of assault was a family member other than a child. Patients more likely to be assaultive were young and male and had a diagnosis of childhood or adolescent disorder or personality disorder. The authors compare these results with those from studies of assault among inpatients and recommend that physicians in outpatient as well as inpatient settings be familiar with the management of assaultive patients.

Adult↗

Indications for hospitalization in the treatment of borderline patients.

Hospitalization is an important component in the treatment of some borderline patients, yet features of the borderline syndrome make the decision to hospitalize a complex one. This paper considers alternatives to hospitalization as well as indications for use of the hospital in the treatment of borderline patients. The roles of brief hospitalization and of extended inpatient treatment are considered separately.

Adult↗

Manic pseudodementia: case report.

The case of a 48-year-old woman hospitalized with a diagnosis of organic brain syndrome and later diagnosed as manic-depressive is presented to illustrate the occurrence of pseudodementia in bipolar illness. The patient's cognitive impairments and their response to lithium carbonate treatment were documented by clinical observation and neuropsychologic testing. This case raises the possibility that a preexisting subclinical neurologic disorder may contribute to the presentation of functional psychiatric illness as pseudodementia.

Bipolar Disorder↗