Borderline patients have difficulties describing feelings; bipolar II patients describe difficult feelings. An alexithymia study.

Our results suggest that in BPD, high DIDF scores represent genuine problems with identifying and describing emotions which are expected to correlate with relationship problems. In BIP-II, high DIDF scores could potentially represent difficulties with understanding the unpredictable symptoms of bipolar mood swings. The findings suggest that difficulties with identifying and describing feelings in patients should be carefully explored to increase the validity of the diagnostic evaluation.