A review of the Literature over the last few years, concerning those epidemiological studies linking sexual abuse with borderline personality disorder and bulimia, emphasized how often victims of sexual abuse matched their bulimic acts, such as the usual rituals of “binge-eating”, vomiting and abuse of laxatives and/or diuretics, with frequent self-injurious behaviours [1-3]. Impulsivity represents a relevant psychopathological aspect of those disorders. In particular, many authors reported the presence of high impulsivity levels among bulimic patients [4,5] together with, in some cases, aggressive behaviours and the so-called self-injurious behaviour [6]. All international classifications emphasize certain clinical criteria such as unstable identity and interpersonal relationships, feelings of emptiness or boredom, and pathological impulsiveness. Self injury is generally considered a display of the loss of impulse control or impulse dyscontrol, an alteration of the driving energies that determine everyone’s choices, so frequent in personality disorders such as the borderline disorder [7]. The prevalence is about 2%, with a female-male sex ratio of 2 or 3 to 1. Both adolescents and adults may be affected. There is a high risk of suicide, addictive behaviors, eating disorders, and criminality. These individuals frequently have a history of trauma in early childhood, such as separation, loss, physical or sexual abuse, or affective privation [8]. Although self-injurious behaviours belong to subjects with a vast array of clinical diagnoses, the phenomenon seems to have its symptomatic and psychodynamic specificity in bulimic patients, proving to be a precise indication for a further diagnostic investigation, particularly under a psychodynamic point of view. The following study aims to underline how self injury in the two bulimic patients with borderline personality disorder may express a behaviour that contemplates both dimensions: impulsivity and compulsiveness. Moreover, the grievous harm of one’s own body points out the need to find visible identities, recognizable in the real world, to be shown as a support and defence against other people’s intrusions.

Citation: Galletta D, Aurino C, Sica G, Amodio A, Elce C, et al. (2015) Self- Injurious Behaviour: Self Identity, Impulsiveness and Self-Injury in Patients with Borderline Personality Disorders and Bulimia. J Psychiatry 18:262. doi: 10.4172/Psychiatry.1000262

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