Predicting the Scores of Personality Disorders by Emotional Self-Awareness and Self-Compassion

Personality Disorders (PDs) have been among the most complex psychological conditions in recent years. A prominent feature of these disorders is a significant lack of self–awareness; this population lacks adequate insight into their problem. Therefore, they rarely attempt to treat their personality disorder. To pay attention to the lack of self–awareness in patients with a PD, the lack of emotional self–awareness is the fundamental part of self–awareness, and concurrently, it is the cornerstone of emotional intelligence. Emotional self–awareness is a fundamental issue that seems to be severely impaired in individuals with PD. Evidence also suggests the lack of self–compassion in individuals with PDs. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the possibility of predicting PDs using emotional self–awareness and self–compassion.

This was descriptive–correlational research. The statistical population included individuals with PD who were referred to one of the psychological services centers in Tehran City, Iran, in 2019 and 2020. Accordingly, a sample of 200 subjects was selected by the convenience sampling method. We examined clients in terms of PDs by completing the Millon Clinical Multi–Axial Inventory–III (MCMI–III; Millon, 1994). According to the inclusion and exclusion criteria of the study, we selected those with a great understanding of the inventory items and more accurate responses to them. Besides, we excluded those who answered the first questionnaire in an exaggerated way to diagnose PDs. After completing the first questionnaire, the study participants completed the Self–Reflection and Insight scale (Grant et al., 2002) to measure emotional self–awareness as well as the self–compassion scale (Neff, 2003) to measure self–compassion. We employed descriptive statistics, including mean and standard deviation to analyze the collected data. Furthermore, the Kolmogorov–Smirnov test was applied to evaluate the data normality. Moreover, the obtained data were analyzed by the Pearson correlation coefficient and multiple linear regression in SPSS at the significance level of 0.05.

 We measured the Pearson correlation coefficients between emotional self–awareness and schizoid PD (r=–0.290, p<0.001), paranoid PD (r=–0.233, p<0.001), schizotypal PD (r=–0.246, p<0.001), histrionic PD (r=0.214, p<0.001), borderline PD (r=–0.252, p<0.001), narcissistic PD (r=0.154, p<0.001), antisocial PD (r=–0.306, p<0.001), dependent PD (r=–0.306, p<0.001), avoidant PD (r=–0.180, p<0.001), obsessive–compulsive PD (r=0.308, p<0.001), and a group of other PDs (r=–0.307, p<0.001). Furthermore, we measured the Pearson correlation coefficient between self–compassion and schizoid PD (r=–0.217, p<0.001), paranoid PD (r=–0.235, p<0.001), schizotypal PD (r=–0.446, p<0.001), histrionic PD (r=0.204, p<0.001), borderline PD (r=–0.438, p<0.001), narcissistic PD (r=0.349, p<0.001), antisocial PD (r=–0.201, p<0.001), dependent PD (r=–0.452, p<0.001), avoidant PD (r=–0.275, p<0.001), obsessive–compulsive PD (r=0.437, p<0.001), and a group of other PDs (r=–0.576, p<0.001). The regression analysis results also indicated that emotional self–awareness and self–compassion could together predict schizoid PD (emotional self–awareness (p=0.007); self–compassion (p=0.014)), histrionic PD [emotional self–awareness (p=0.010); self–compassion (p=0.011)], and obsessive–compulsive PD [emotional self–awareness (p=0.026)]; self–compassion (p=0.005); and self–compassion could alone predict schizotypal PD (p=0.006), borderline PD (p=0.022), and other PD groups (p<0.001). Therefore, emotional self–awareness and self–compassion could together predict the scores of schizoid, histrionic, and obsessive–compulsive PDs. Furthermore, self–compassion could predict the scores of schizotypal and borderline PDs and a group of other PDs. More precisely, the highest adjR2 was related to the group of other PDs (0.348) and the lowest adjR2 belonged to paranoid PD (0.071). The highest effect of emotional self–awareness was on schizoid PD (β=–1.971, p=0.007) and the lowest effect of emotional self–awareness was on obsessive–compulsive PD (β=0.822, p=0.026). The highest effect of self–compassion concerned the group of other PDs (β=–1.016, p=0.001), and the lowest effect of self–compassion was on borderline PD (β=–0.807, p=0.022). The highest impact was the interaction effect of emotional self–awareness and self–compassion on histrionic PD (β=–1.374, p=0.027), and the lowest influence was the interaction effect of emotional self–awareness and self–compassion on schizoid PD (β=1.301, p=0.034).

Low levels of emotional self–awareness and self–compassion together can generate schizoid PD. This association is inverse for the histrionic and obsessive–compulsive PDs, i.e., due to inaccurate response to the questionnaires and the desire to present themselves as perfect. Furthermore, a low level of self–compassion can be a basis for schizotypal and borderline as well as a group of other PDs; thus, we can predict the scores of these PDs on this basis.