Identity-related autobiographical memories and cultural life scripts in patients with Borderline Personality Disorder

► We study life-story memories and life-scripts in Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). ► Patients with BPD are compared to OCD and non-clinical controls. ► BPD patients score higher on identity diffusion than OCD patients and controls. ► Life-story memories in BPD patients are more negative, less coherent and less typical. ► Cultural life scripts generated by BPD patients are less consistent with cultural norms. Disturbed identity is one of the defining characteristics of Borderline Personality Disorder manifested in a broad spectrum of dysfunctions related to the self, including disturbances in meaning-generating self-narratives. Autobiographical memories are memories of personal events that provide crucial building-blocks in our construction of a life-story, self-concept, and a meaning-generating narrative identity. The cultural life script represents culturally shared expectations as to the order and timing of life events in a prototypical life course within a given culture. It is used to organize one’s autobiographical memories. Here, 17 BPD-patients, 14 OCD-patients, and 23 non-clinical controls generated three important autobiographical memories and their conceptions of the cultural life script. BPD-patients reported substantially more negative memories, fewer of their memories were of prototypical life script events, their memory narratives were less coherent and more disoriented, and the overall typicality of their life scripts was lower as compared with the other two groups.