Fitzpatrick, SkyeTissera, Talia Maria2025-04-102025-04-102024-08-202025-04-10https://hdl.handle.net/10315/42731Intimate relationship dysfunction is characteristic of borderline personality disorder (BPD), and partners’ behaviours may exacerbate or ameliorate self-injury in BPD. Therefore, this study investigated partners’ awareness of people with BPD’s self-injury, how they find out about self-injury, their responses to self-injury, and their self-evaluated helpfulness. To address these aims, 15 people with BPD and their 15 partners reported on the presence or absence of self-injury for 30 days; partners also reported how they found out about self-injury for 30 days and completed semi-structured interviews about a recent response to self-injury and their self-evaluated helpfulness. Partners were aware of 40% of self-injury, and 66.7% found out about self-injury because people with BPD disclosed it. Qualitatively, most partners responded to self-injury by soothing, protecting, and/or problem solving for people with BPD. Most partners observed mixed or negative reactions to their efforts, and perhaps consequently, some felt lost about how helpful they were.Author owns copyright, except where explicitly noted. Please contact the author directly with licensing requests.Electronic Thesis or Dissertation2025-04-10Borderline personality disorderBPDSelf-injuryNSSISuicideRomantic partnersCouplesDisclosureCommunicationQualitativeEcological momentary assessmentEMAMixed-methods