This is the first study to explore interpersonal schemata in outpatient youths (age 15-25 years) with early-stage borderline personality disorder (BPD) and auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH). It also aimed to replicate, in a transdiagnostic youth sample, the finding from studies of adults with AVH that negative beliefs about the self and others lead to negative appraisals of voices, which in turn elicits depression. The following 3 groups were compared: youth with BPD+AVH (n = 23), youth with schizophrenia spectrum disorder (SZ) with AVH (SZ+AVH, n = 20), and youths with BPD who did not experience AVH (BPD no AVH, n = 23). The BPD+AVH group reported more negative and fewer positive self schemata than the SZ+AVH group. They also saw themselves as being more socially inferior to others than did the SZ+AVH group, but they did not differ in appraisals of self or others, compared with the BPD no AVH group. In youths with AVH (BPD+AVH, SZ+AVH combined), the indirect effect of beliefs about self or others, via negative appraisals of voices on depression, was not significant. Instead, a significant indirect effect of negative appraisals of voices on depression, via negative beliefs about self, was found. The experience of AVH during adolescence and young adulthood, when the identity is still being formed, might have a more profound effect on the developing self than during later adulthood, when the self is more stable and resilient. Negative self-appraisals might constitute a treatment target for early intervention for youths with distressing voices, including those with BPD.
Keywords: Beliefs about voices; Malevolence; Omnipotence; Schemata; Voice-related distress.
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