Gender Differences in Victimization and the Relation to Personality Disorders in Forensic Psychiatry

The Role of Personality Factors in Childhood Traumatic Events’ Impact on Treatment Progress

“…56 Surprisingly, this study found no significant path association between maltreatment and maladaptive personality traits, though, numerous studies suggest the link (e.g., Ball & Link, 2009;Bohle & de Vogel, 2017;Carlson et al, 2015;DeLisi et al, 2019;Goddard & Pooley, 2019;Ibrahim et al, 2018;Sharp et al, 2020). One possible explanation for the discrepancies in findings is the type of maltreatment measure used in this current study.…”

“…Similarly, a meta-analysis found that antisocial and psychopathic traits were the highest self-reported maladaptive personality traits in a forensic population (Spaans et al, 2017). Psychopathy was also found to be a mediating factor in the relationship between childhood trauma and violent offending (Bohle & de Vogel, 2017), in particular, callous and unemotional traits were identified as one possible underlying mechanism in this relationship (Carlson et al, 2015). Studies suggest that the development of psychopathic traits may be promoted via neurobiological anomalies due to childhood trauma (Gowin et al, 2013;Kolla et al, 2014;Schimmenti et al, 2015) or may be promoted by punitive parenting (Patrick, 2010).…”

“…Antisocial personality disorder may be more commonly observed in individuals with adverse childhood experiences. For example, a study including 436 individuals in forensic psychiatric care found that men who experienced early childhood victimisation, in particular physical abuse, were diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder more frequently than those who did not have any such history (Bohle & de Vogel, 2017). No such relationship was found in female cases of antisocial personality disorder.…”

“…Similar to antisocial personality traits, borderline personality traits are observed at a greater rate in individuals with a history of trauma (Ball & Link, 2009;Bohle & de Vogel, 2017). A systematic literature review identified maltreatment as a risk factor for borderline traits in children, and borderline personality disorder in adulthood (Ibrahim et al, 2018).…”

“…Furthermore, the review found abuse and neglect to be independently associated with borderline personality traits. Another study with a forensic psychiatric sample identified emotional and sexual abuse as the two most significant predictors of borderline personality disorder in female participants (Bohle & de Vogel, 2017).…”