Attachment and its Vicissitudes in Borderline Personality Disorder

Abstract

This article reviews the recent literature on attachment and attachment-related constructs in borderline personality disorder, with attention given to how recent findings in this area may inform understanding of the mechanisms underlying the etiology, maintenance, and treatment of the disorder. Most findings on this topic have stemmed from three major areas of research, each of which is reviewed in this article: 1) developmental psychopathology studies; 2) experimental psychopathology studies, particularly those using a neuroscience approach; and 3) treatment studies that have examined variables relevant to attachment. Overall, these findings suggest that attachment and related constructs may factor greatly into the underlying psychopathology of borderline personality disorder and may significantly impact the process and outcome of psychotherapy for the disorder. These findings are discussed as they relate to existing theories and ongoing debates in the field, and the implications for future research and clinical practice are highlighted.

Entwicklung einer Zwölf-Item-Version des OPD-Strukturfragebogens (OPD-SFK)/ Development of a 12-item version of the OPD-Structure Questionnaire (OPD-SQS)

“…Die Subskala Beziehungsmodell stellt Bezüge zu objektbeziehungstheoretischen Modellen her (Levy u. Scala 2012), die sich zum Beispiel in der Bindungstheorie (Levy et al 2011) (Ehrenthal 2014).…”

The parental reflective functioning questionnaire: Development and preliminary validation

“…Based on the theoretical formulation concerning PRF reviewed above, we formulated items that aimed to capture three key features of PRF [1, 33, 63]: (a) interest and curiosity in mental states, (b) the ability to recognize the opacity of mental states, and (c) nonmentalizing modes characteristic of parents with (severe) impairments in PRF (e.g., malevolent attributions, inability to enter into the subjective world of the child), given that mentalization-based approaches emphasize the centrality of these modes of thinking, which antedate full mentalizing, in understanding the links between impairments in mentalizing, insecure attachment, and psychopathology [4, 7]. …”

The relation between attachment, personality, internalizing, and externalizing dimensions in adolescents with borderline personality disorder

“…Attachment theory has provided a conceptual framework to understand the developmental course associated with personality disorders (Agrawal, Gunderson, Holmes, & Lyons-Ruth, 2004;Bradley, Conklin, & Westen, 2007;Fonagy, 2000;Fonagy et al, 1996;Fonagy & Luyten, 2009;Hesse, 2008;Levy, 2005;Levy, Beeney, & Temes, 2011;Lorenzini & Fonagy, 2013;Meyer & Pilkonis, 2005). According to attachment theory, during early childhood children form an internal working model of self and other based on the affective experiences with the caregivers and attachment figures (Steele, Bate, Nikitiades, & Buhl-Nielsen, 2015).…”