Borderline personality disorder: stress reactivity or stress generation? A prospective dimensional study.

Our longitudinal study of a well-characterized clinical sample found more evidence for stress generation than for stress-induced decompensation in BPD. Stress generation in BPD is driven by externalizing dimensions: antagonism and disinhibition. These results highlight the utility of empirically derived dimensions for parsing heterogeneity present in BPD, leading to improvements in diagnostic evaluation, clinical prediction, and individualized approaches to treatment planning.