Structural Relationships of Borderline Personality Disorder Symptoms and Attachment Styles with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Symptoms

Obsession is a chronic anxiety disorder that is associated with excessive mental preoccupation with order and detail, as well as perfectionism, to the extent that it leads to the loss of flexibility, openness, and efficiency, which, despite the high prevalence, is one of the most resistant disorders to treatment.Obsessive-compulsive disorder sufferers experience a range of emotional reactions when faced with situations that trigger obsessive thoughts and actions. There are individual differences related to the sensitivity to these emotions and the way they are regulated, which is called emotional regulation (Hoffman, Carpenter, & Joshua, 2016). Therefore, the purpose of this research was to investigate the structural relationships between borderline personality disorder symptoms and attachment styles with obsessive symptoms through emotion regulation.

Research design the present is a descriptive correlation (Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) and its sampling method is cluster random, so that 5 faculties of Tabriz University were randomly selected and 200 questionnaires were randomly distributed among the faculties. In order to measure the signs of obsession from the obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCI-R) list, borderline personality traits from the Borderline Personality Disorder (STB) questionnaire, and attachment styles from the Hazen and shaver and Emotion Regulation Questionnaire from Gross and John (2003) The data were analyzed through structural equation modeling

The obtained data were analyzed through structural equation modeling. The results showed that the effect of borderline personality disorder on obsessive symptoms is significant with an effect size of 0.35. The effect of borderline personality disorder on reappraisal is significant with an effect size of -0.52, and the effect of borderline personality disorder on repression is significant with an effect size of 0.38. The effect of borderline personality disorder on obsessive symptoms due to reappraisal is significant with an effect size of -0.36, and the effect of borderline personality disorder on obsessive symptoms due to suppression is significant with an effect size of 0.16. The effect of secure attachment on obsessive symptoms is significant with an effect size of -0.39. The effect of secure attachment on reappraisal and suppression is significant with an effect size of -0.31. The effect of avoidant attachment on obsessive symptoms is significant with an effect size of 0.27, on reappraisal with an effect size of -0.32, and on suppression with an effect size of 0.31. The effect of avoidant attachment on obsessive symptoms is not significant due to reappraisal with an effect size of -0.07 and suppression with an effect size of 0.06. The effect of ambivalent attachment is significant on obsessive symptoms with an effect size of 0.30, on reappraisal with an effect size of -0.29, and on suppression with an effect size of 0.50. The effect of ambivalent attachment on obsessive symptoms due to reappraisal is not significant with an effect size of -0.09, and the effect of ambivalent attachment on obsessive symptoms due to suppression is significant with an effect size of 0.15.

Therefore, it can be concluded that the findings of this research can have important practical effects for clinical therapists and psychologists to pay attention to the structural relationships of borderline personality disorder symptoms and attachment styles with obsessive symptoms through emotional regulation.