How mothers with borderline personality disorder relate to their year-old infants.

BACKGROUND: Women with borderline personality disorder have conflictual interpersonal relations that may extend to disrupted patterns of interaction with their infants. AIMS: To assess how women with borderline personality disorder engage with their 12 to 18-month-old infants in separation-reunion episodes. METHOD: We videotaped mother-infant interactions in separation-reunion episodes of the Strange Situation test. The mothers were women with borderline personality disorder, with depression, or without psychopathological disorder. Masked ratings of maternal behaviour were made with the Atypical Maternal Behavior Instrument for Assessment and Classification. RESULTS: As predicted, a higher proportion (85%) of women with borderline personality disorder than women in the comparison groups showed disrupted affective communication with their infants. They were also distinguished by the prevalence of frightened/disoriented behaviour. CONCLUSIONS: Maternal borderline personality disorder is associated with dysregulated mother-infant communication.

Personal relatedness and attachment in infants of mothers with borderline personality disorder.

The principal aim of this study was to assess personal relatedness and attachment patterns in 12-month-old infants of mothers with borderline personality disorder (BPD). We also evaluated maternal intrusive insensitivity toward the infants in semistructured play. We videotaped 10 mother-infant dyads with borderline mothers and 22 dyads where the mothers were free from psychopathology, in three different settings: a modification of Winnicott's Set Situation in which infants faced an initially unresponsive ("still-face") stranger, who subsequently tried to engage the infant in a game of give and take; the Strange Situation of Ainsworth and Wittig; and a situation in which mothers were requested to teach their infants to play with miniature figures and a toy train. In relation to a set of a priori predictions, the results revealed significant group differences as follows: (a) compared with control infants, toward the stranger the infants of mothers with BPD showed lower levels of "availability for positive engagement," lower ratings of "behavior organization and mood state," and a lower proportion of interpersonally directed looks that were positive; (b) in the Strange Situation, a higher proportion (8 out of 10) of infants of borderline mothers were categorized as Disorganized; and (c) in play, mothers with BPD were rated as more "intrusively insensitive" toward their infants. The results are discussed in relation to hypotheses concerning the interpersonal relations of women with BPD, and possible implications for their infants' development.

Maternal sensitivity and infant triadic communication.

BACKGROUND AND METHOD: The aim of this study was to examine whether a mother's sensitivity towards her one-year-old infant is related to the infant's propensity to engage in 'triadic' relations--that is, to orientate to an adult's engagement with objects and events in the world, for example in sharing experiences with an adult. In order to determine that any effects were specific to infants' behaviour in the interpersonal domain, we also tested their performance on tests of understanding means-ends relations and object permanence. RESULTS: The results were that high maternal sensitivity and low intrusiveness correlated with high levels of infant triadic interpersonal engagement with a stranger vis-a-vis performance on the non-social tasks. There was also suggestive evidence that maternal sensitivity might be related to infants' propensity to share experiences with the mother. Exploratory analyses revealed that these findings held up when the effects of maternal socio-economic status and ethnic group were taken into account; and there was some indication that the effects of maternal intrusiveness on infant profiles of performance were more marked for mothers who did not have a partner. CONCLUSION: There is a specific relation between maternal sensitivity and one-year-old infants' propensity to engage with someone else in relation to the world.

'Still-face' interactions between mothers with borderline personality disorder and their 2-month-old infants.

BACKGROUND: There is evidence that psychopathology in mothers may be associated with dysfunctional mother-infant interactions. AIMS: To investigate mother-infant relations when mothers have borderline personality disorder. METHOD: Eight mothers with borderline personality disorder and twelve mothers without psychiatric disorder were videotaped interacting with their 2-month-old infants in three successive phases of interaction: face-to-face play; an episode when the mother adopted a 'still face' and was unreactive; and a period when play interactions were resumed. The videotapes were rated by judges blind to the diagnostic group of the mother. RESULTS: The mothers with borderline personality disorder were more intrusively insensitive towards their infants. During the still-face period, their infants showed increased looking away and dazed looks. Following this, mother-infant interactions were less satisfying and their infants showed dazed looks and lowering of affect. CONCLUSIONS: The diagnosis of borderline personality disorder is associated with a particular pattern of mother-infant interaction. The infants' responses to the still-face challenge might suggest dysfunctional self-regulation, but the developmental significance remains to be assessed.