Severity of Borderline Personality Symptoms in Adolescence: Relationship With Maternal Parenting Stress, Maternal Psychopathology, and Rearing Styles

Abstract

The development of borderline personality disorder (BPD) has been associated with parenting styles and parental psychopathology. Only a few studies have examined current parental rearing styles and parental psychopathology in relationship to BPD symptoms in adolescents. Moreover, parenting stress has not been examined in this group. The current study examined 101 adolescents (14-19 years old) with BPD symptoms and their mothers. Assessments were made on severity of BPD symptoms, youth-perceived maternal rearing styles, and psychopathology and parenting stress in mothers. Multiple regression analyses were used to examine potential predictors of borderline severity. No correlation was found between severity of BPD symptoms in adolescents and parenting stress. Only youth-perceived maternal overprotection was significantly related to BPD severity. The combination of perceived maternal rejection with cluster B traits in mothers was significantly related to BPD severity in adolescents. This study provides a contribution to the disentanglement of the developmental pathways that lead to BPD.

The Main and Interactive Effects of Maternal Interpersonal Emotion Regulation and Negative Affect on Adolescent Girls’ Borderline Personality Disorder Symptoms

“…This study adds to a small but growing line of research using structured parent-adolescent dyadic conflict tasks to identify factors related to the development of BPD (Crowell et al 2008; Schuppert et al 2014; Whalen et al 2014). In light of etiological theories of BPD emphasizing the interplay of individual emotional vulnerability and interpersonal environments, this interactive paradigm is of particular relevance to BPD.…”

“…Consistent with the biosocial theory, findings from self-report research suggest that parental behaviors consistent with invalidation, involving ignoring, neglecting, or dismissing their child’s emotional experiences, are associated with greater ER difficulties in children (Johnson et al 2006) and retrospective reports of these parental behaviors have been associated with BPD symptoms in young adults (Sauer and Baer 2010). Looking specifically at observations of parent-adolescent conflict, research suggests that other potentially invalidating behaviors, such as perceived maternal rejection and overprotection, are concurrently associated with BPD features (Schuppert et al 2014). Whereas these invalidating parental responses are associated with greater BPD severity, it is possible that validating and supportive parental responses may constitute protective factors against BPD.…”

“…Indeed, an absence of responsiveness or acknowledgement of youth’s distress is consistent with Linehan’s definition of invalidation (Linehan 1993). Evidence suggests that such unresponsive parenting (as reported by the young adult/adolescent with BPD) has been associated with concurrent BPD severity (Schuppert et al 2014) as well as future BPD risk (Johnson et al 2006). In other samples, low parental responsiveness to children’s distress has demonstrated associations with lower ER ability among children (Davidov and Grusec 2006).…”

The role of maternal care in borderline personality disorder and dependent life stress

“…Within a sample of adolescent inpatients, maternal care has also been negatively associated with BPD diagnosis and symptom severity [ 10 ]. Finally, a plethora of maternal parenting qualities (e.g., adolescent-perceived maternal overprotection, maternal psychopathology, and parental absence) have all been linked with BPD symptom severity [ 11 , 12 ]. These studies thus consistently demonstrate that low maternal care is a risk factor for BPD in adolescents [ 11 – 13 ].…”

“…Finally, a plethora of maternal parenting qualities (e.g., adolescent-perceived maternal overprotection, maternal psychopathology, and parental absence) have all been linked with BPD symptom severity [ 11 , 12 ]. These studies thus consistently demonstrate that low maternal care is a risk factor for BPD in adolescents [ 11 – 13 ]. For the present study, two specific aspects of adolescents’ perceptions of maternal care, modeled on Bowlby’s [ 14 ] theory, were considered: availability and dependability; specifically, the second aim of the present study was to explore the relation between BPD and maternal care among adolescents.…”