The Experience of Maltreatment in Young Children Whose Mothers Have Borderline Personality Disorder: Reflections in Their Narrative Representations.

Child maltreatment is an etiological factor in borderline personality disorder (BPD), which may be transmitted to the children of mothers with BPD. We assessed maltreatment in 36 children aged 4-7 whose mothers have BPD and in 34 normative comparisons. Children whose mothers have BPD were more likely to have experienced sexual abuse, physical abuse, and neglect than were normative comparisons. Mothers' self-reported borderline features were significantly correlated with children's maltreatment. Neglect was associated with mothers' affective instability, identity disturbance, negative relationships, and self-harm; sexual abuse was associated with mothers' identity disturbance, and negative relationships; and physical abuse was associated with mothers' self-harm. Maltreatment mediated the relationship between all four of mothers' borderline features and children's narrative representations of the caregiver-child relationship, which included fear of abandonment, role reversal, and mother-child relationship expectations. The authors discuss results in the context of risk for developing BPD in early adulthood and early preventive interventions targeting children's representations.

Talking Together, Thinking Alone: Relations among Co-Rumination, Peer Relationships, and Rumination.

Girls are more likely to engage in rumination, associated with the development of mental health problems, as well as report higher levels of friendship quality, hypothesized to protect against these disorders. The current study examined whether co-rumination may drive simultaneous increases in rumination and changes in friendship quality among adolescents. The project included 360 participants (43% boys), ages 9.8 to 15.8 years, and analyses revealed that co-rumination mediated the link between female sex and both rumination and negative friendship quality. There was also a bidirectional relation between co-rumination and positive friendship quality. These findings highlight several pathways by which co-rumination mediates the relation between sex and both maladaptive (i.e. rumination, negative friendship quality) and adaptive (i.e. positive friendship quality) outcomes.

Patterns of Emotional Availability between Mothers and Young Children: Associations with Risk Factors for Borderline Personality Disorder.

Emotional availability (EA) characterizes a warm, close relationship between caregiver and child. We compared patterns (clusters) of EA on risk factors, including those for borderline personality disorder (BPD). We sampled 70 children aged 4 to 7 years from low-socioeconomic backgrounds, 51% of whose mothers had BPD. We coded filmed interactions for EA: mothers' sensitivity, structuring, non-intrusiveness, non-hostility, and children's responsiveness to, and involvement of, mothers. We additionally coded children's over-responsiveness and over-involvement. Using person-centered analyses, we identified four clusters: high-functioning, low-functioning, asynchronous (mothers above average on two of four dimensions, children below) and below average. Mothers in the low-functioning cluster had lower income, less social support, more of the borderline feature of negative relationships and more depression than did mothers in the high-functioning cluster. The children in the low-functioning group had more risk factors for BPD (physical abuse, neglect, and separation from, or loss of caregivers, and negative narrative representations of the mother-child relationship in their stories) than did children in the high-functioning group. The asynchronous group included older girls who were over-responsive and over-involving with their mothers in an apparent role reversal. Interventions targeting emotional availability may provide a buffer for children facing cumulative risks and help prevent psychopathology.

Effect of maternal borderline personality disorder on adolescents' experience of maltreatment and adolescent borderline features.

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a severe and chronic mental illness. Self-reported borderline features correlate highly with a diagnosis (affective instability, negative relationships, unstable sense of self, self-harm). Etiological factors of BPD include childhood maltreatment. The current study compared the experience of maltreatment in adolescent offspring of mothers with BPD, who are themselves at risk of developing the disorder, with that of offspring of mothers with no current diagnosis. Participants were 56 adolescents aged 14 to 18 years. In all, 93% of the adolescents whose mothers had BPD experienced maltreatment compared with 60% of comparisons. Specifically, adolescent offspring of mothers with BPD experienced more physical abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect, but not more sexual abuse, than did comparisons. Dimensions of maltreatment (severity, multiple subtypes, chronicity) were associated with adolescents' own total borderline features. We discuss implications for the intergenerational transmission of BPD and for clinical interventions. (PsycINFO Database Record

A Mother's Borderline Personality Disorder and Her Sensitivity, Autonomy Support, Hostility, Fearful/Disoriented Behavior, and Role Reversal With Her Young Child.

There is some evidence that maternal borderline personality disorder (BPD) adversely affects parenting in infancy, resulting in disorganized attachment, which longitudinally predicts BPD symptoms in adulthood. We examined parenting related to disorganized attachment beyond infancy in offspring of mothers with BPD, when parenting becomes a goal-corrected partnership. We observed puzzle solving in a low socioeconomic status (SES) sample of mothers with BPD and their children ages 4-7, n = 36, and normative comparisons, n = 34. Compared with normative mothers and controlling for maternal mood disorders, mothers with BPD were less likely to be sensitive and provide autonomy support, and were more likely to be hostile and display fearful/disoriented behavior and higher levels of parent-child role reversal. We additionally found correlations between parenting and self-reported maternal borderline features. We discuss implications for child development, including possible transmission of BPD from mothers to children via representational models, and developmentally appropriate preventive interventions.

Early adolescent symptoms of social phobia prospectively predict alcohol use.

OBJECTIVE: The current study examined whether social phobia (SP) symptoms in early adolescence prospectively predicted alcohol use through middle adolescence in a community sample of youth. METHOD: Data from an ongoing longitudinal study (N = 277) of mechanisms of HIV-related risk behaviors in youth were used to assess the extent to which SP symptoms in early adolescence (mean [SD] age = 11.00 years [0.81]) would predict alcohol use across five annual assessment waves. Adolescents completed measures of SP symptoms, depressive symptoms, and alcohol use at each wave. RESULTS: Higher SP symptoms at baseline predicted higher average odds of alcohol consumption during subsequent waves but did not significantly predict an increase in the odds of alcohol use as a function of time. Within a lagged model, SP symptoms measured at a prior assessment point (1 year earlier) predicted greater odds of drinking alcohol at the following assessment point. Importantly, alcohol use did not significantly predict SP symptoms over time. These results suggest that early SP symptoms are an important risk factor for increased odds of subsequent alcohol use. CONCLUSIONS: The present findings highlight that elevated SP symptoms place adolescents at risk for early alcohol use. Early interventions targeting SP symptoms may be crucial for the prevention of problematic alcohol use in early to mid-adolescence. Implications for prevention and treatment approaches are discussed.

Emotion regulation mediates the association between ADHD and depressive symptoms in a community sample of youth.

The purpose of this study was to examine the longitudinal relationship between attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms, emotion regulation (ER) ability, and depressive symptoms within a diverse community sample of 277 youth, ages 9-12 (56 % male). Participants were drawn from a larger study examining adolescent risk behaviors, and completed annual assessments over 3 years. Youth ADHD symptoms were assessed at Time 1 (T1) using the parent-reported Disruptive Behavior Disorders Rating Scale, ER was assessed with the parent-reported Emotion Regulation Checklist at Time 2 (T2), and youth depressive symptoms were assessed using the self-reported Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scales at Time 3 (T3). Analyses examined T2 ER as a mediator between T1 ADHD symptoms (including the unique contributions of inattentive [IA] versus hyperactive/impulsive [HI] symptoms) and T3 depressive symptoms. Structural equation modeling (SEM) indicated the path model specified provided an excellent fit to the data. Tests of indirect effects suggested that T2 ER appears to be a significant mechanism that underlies the relationship between T1 ADHD and T3 depression, even when accounting for T1 oppositional defiant and depressive symptoms. Furthermore, while both T1 IA and HI symptoms had significant indirect effects on T3 depression through the mechanism T2 ER, HI proved a more robust predictor of T2 ER than IA. Results of this prospective study support cross-sectional findings pointing to ER as a potential mechanism linking ADHD and depressive symptoms in youth. Clinical implications and future directions are discussed.