Meaning in life in personality disorder: An empirical approach considering self-direction, self-transcendence and spiritual/religious worldviews

Meaning-in-Life might be associated with self-direction for patients with personality disorder (PD) but also with depressive symptoms or existential factors such as self-transcendence and spiritual/religious worldviews. PD patients (n = 125) and a control group (n = 69) completed the following: Meaning-in-Life Questionnaire (MLQ-Presence and MLQ-Search), General-Assessment-of-personality-disorder subscale Lack-of-Meaning-Purpose-Direction (GAPD-LMPD), Symptom-Checklist-Depression (SCL-90-Depression), Temperament-and-Character-Inventory scale Self-Transcendence (TCI-ST) and a worldview-questionnaire. PD patients showed less meaning in life, but religious and spiritual/non-religious worldviews mattered. Results emphasize that PD, beyond depressive symptoms, possesses a unique association with meaning-in-life and suggest exploring spiritual/religious worldviews as possible sources for meaning-in-life. MLQ-Presence and GAPD-LMPD seem to assess no identical constructs.