Borderline Personality in Perpetrators of Psychological and Physical Abuse

The present study is an extension of research that examined the relationship between borderline personality organization (BPO), anger (assessed with the Multidimensional Anger Inventory [MAI]), and wife abuse in 120 men who had committed wife assault. Seventy-five female partners reported on physical and psychological abuse by the men, using the Conflict Tactics Scale and the Psychological Maltreatment of Women Inventory. The men's BPO self-report scores correlated significantly with their partners' reports of their abusiveness as assessed by these scales. Three self-report subscale scores on the MAI and one on the BPO scale accounted for 50% of the variance in their partners' reports of domination and isolation, and for 35% of the women's reports of emotional abuse.