Moreover, many patients with BPD have difficulties in identifying and

describing their own feelings, referred to as alexithymia [2,3,4,5]. BPD is

also frequently associated with trauma-related dissociative symptoms

These factors may result in subsequent development of poor emotion

recognition (i.e., alexithymia) and emotion dysregulatio
Alexithymia is a subclinical trait characterized by a cognitive deficit in
experiencing emotions, specifically difficulty identifying and expressing
one’s own emotions, difficulty distinguishing between emotions and
physical sensations, and an externally oriented thinking sty
It seems to be associated with altered interoceptive awareness and a
tendency to misinterpret bodily signals [39]. Importantly, alexithymia is
associated with low mentalizing and emotion dysregulation. It is a clinically
prominent phenomenon in BPD [40], and since the ability to recognize and
mentalize emotions is a prerequisite for their effective regulation, the
findings on the link between alexithymia and deficits in emotion regulation
are not surprising [41, 42]. Despite the scarcity of direct evidence linking
alexithymia to self-disgust in BPD

https://guilfordjournals.com/doi/10.1521/pedi_2021_35_513

This describes a personality modality characterized by a failure to identify emotions

and a difficulty in describing feelings, a lack of imagination, and a tendency to
develop concrete and externally oriented thinking (24, 25). The association between
borderline symptomatology and alexithymia is fairly well-established by several
studies that describe a link between the two dimensions, although it is not restricted
to BPD (26, 27). Alexithymia represents a transdiagnosis overlap, also described, for
example, in anorexia nervosa, in autism spectrum, or at the interface between the
autism spectrum and BPD functioning (28, 29).

https://www.dovepress.com/the-association-of-borderline-personality-
features-and-self-injury-amo-peer-reviewed-fulltext-article-PRBM