If you’ve worked with clients who have borderline personality disorder (BPD), you’ve probably had a conversation like this:

Therapist: How did that make you feel?

Client: I dunno.

Therapist: How do you think that might have made someone else feel?

Client: I dunno.

Therapist: Take a look at that list of feeling words and see if there’s anything that fits.

Client: Oh God. I can’t face that list today.

Therapist: Well… hm.

Client: You’re getting worried. You’re thinking about referring me, aren’t you?

Can people really be so oblivious to their emotions when they’re so well-attuned to yours?

Carina Frick, Simone Lang, et al answer at least half of that question in their  new study. They asked clients with BPD to receive an MRI while guessing the emotions others displayed in photographs.  The BPD clients out-guessed the control group of healthy subjects. The fMRIs showed they actually…