Multidimensional dichotomous thinking characterizes borderline personalitydisorder

This study investigated whether dichotomous thinking is characteristic of b orderline personality disorder (BPD). Patients with BPD (N = 16), control p atients with Cluster-C personality disorder (PD; N = 12), and normal contro ls (N = 15) evaluated personalities from film clips in a structured respons e format. Film clips were presented with emotional themes, which were hypot hesized to be either specific or nonspecific for borderline pathology, and with neutral themes. Dichotomous thinking was operationalized as the extrem ity of evaluations on a list of visual analogue scales (VASs) with bipolar trait descriptions. Patients with BPD made more extreme evaluations (dichot omous thinking) On BPD-specific film clips, but not on control film clips, than subjects of both control groups. The extreme evaluations of patients w ith BPD were not either "all good" or "all bad," which indicates that patie nts with BPD no not engage in unidimensional good-bad thinking (splitting), but are capable of viewing others in mixed, although extreme, terms (multi dimensional dichotomous thinking).