Treating Borderline PD with Oxytocin? A New Way To Improve Empathy

There’s a new study using oxytocin to treat borderline personality disorder. To date we really don’t have a medication treatment for the disorder. The main treatment is dialectical behavior therapy and medication only to address other symptoms like depression or anxiety.

I talk more about that in this video I did on borderpolar, the combination of bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLazcP3-djRZ2eRZKjogWU93M_4HYbfzbo

But in a nutshell, people with borderline personality struggle in relationships with mistrust, they fear being abandoned by the other person. This can create a lot of anxiety and depressed mood and impulsive, self-harming behaviors.

Some researchers believe that at the core of the disorder is impaired empathy and this is what causes the interpersonal problems.

So here’s what the new research looks like. Researchers out of Germany took a group of women and looked at 3 aspects of empathy: Cognitive, emotional and what they called approach motivation. They showed the women pictures of people expressing different kinds of emotions. Then they asked them to recognize the emotional state. This is cognitive empathy.

The Results
The women with BPD who got the 1 dose oxytocin nasal spray had a rise in their empathy scores that was equal to the women without BPD who didn’t get any treatment.

Their reaction to the people’s faces changed such that they were better able to relate to negative and positive emotions AND they had the feeling of wanting to be close to the people in the pictures.

This is definitely a positive finding. It can set the stage for clinical trials to use the drug as an add-on agent to therapy for BPD. Learning how to manage your emotions, tolerate distress and improve your relationships is still something that needs to be handled with therapy. A drug can’t teach you those things. But this study adds weight to the idea that biologically there’s something missing in people with BPD that makes it hard for you to do these things on your own.

References

Domes, G., Ower, N., von Dawans, B. et al. Effects of intranasal oxytocin administration on empathy and approach motivation in women with borderline personality disorder: a randomized controlled trial. Transl Psychiatry 9, 328 (2019).

Want to know more about mental health and self-improvement? On this channel I discuss topics such as bipolar disorder, major depression, anxiety disorders, attention deficit disorder (ADHD), relationships and personal development/self-improvement. I upload weekly. If you don’t want to miss a video, click here to subscribe. https://goo.gl/DFfT33

Disclaimer: All of the information on this channel is for educational purposes and not intended to be specific/personal medical advice from me to you. Watching the videos or getting answers to comments/question, does not establish a doctor-patient relationship. If you have your own doctor, perhaps these videos can help prepare you for your discussion with your doctor.

By: Dr. Tracey Marks
Title: Treating Borderline PD with Oxytocin? A New Way To Improve Empathy
Sourced From: www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsp0jX-6m4Q