Childhood Maltreatment, Borderline Personality Features, and Coping as Predictors of Intimate Partner Violence

Abstract

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a serious mental and physical health concern worldwide. Although previous research suggests that childhood maltreatment increases the risk for IPV, the underlying psychological mechanisms of this relationship are not yet entirely understood. Borderline personality (BP) features may play an important role in the cycle of violence, being associated with interpersonal violence in both childhood and adult relationships. The present study investigated whether BP features mediate the relationship between childhood maltreatment and IPV, differentiating between perpetration and victimization, and taking maladaptive stress coping and gender into account. Self-reports on IPV, childhood trauma, BP features, and maladaptive stress coping were collected in a mixed (nonclinical and clinical) sample of 703 adults (n = 537 female, n = 166 male), using an online survey. A serial mediation analysis (PROCESS) was performed to quantify

Linking experiences of child sexual abuse to adult sexual intimate partner violence: the role of borderline personality features, maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation, and dissociation

“…Emotion dysregulation is a common consequence of CSA [ 4 ]. Survivors of CSA often internalize their stressful experiences, e.g., through self-blame [ 12 , 19 ], and use avoidance coping to regulate emotions in the short-run [ 20 – 23 ]. In the long-run, these emotion regulation strategies hinder goal-oriented problem-solving (e.g., reaching out for practical and social support) and increase emotional distress [ 2 , 4 , 12 , 24 ].…”

“…Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is associated with more dating violence in adolescence [ 34 ] and IPV in adulthood [ 19 , 35 – 38 ]. Even though a history of trauma is neither necessary nor sufficient for the development of BPD [10], higher rates of CSA have been found in patients with the disorder compared to other psychiatric groups [ 3 , 39 – 42 ].…”

“…First evidence for a mediating effect of BPD features on the link between child abuse and IPV stems from a previous study by Krause-Utz et al (2018) [ 19 ]. In this study, female and male participants ( n = 703) performed an anonymous online survey.…”

“…In this study, female and male participants ( n = 703) performed an anonymous online survey. Significant correlations between severity of child maltreatment (abuse, neglect), BPD features, maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation, and IPV were found [ 19 ]. BPD features but not maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation mediated the association between child maltreatment (emotional, physical, sexual abuse and neglect) and IPV.…”

“…This raised the question whether BPD features may still have a mediating effect, when accounting for experiences of dissociation. Since Krause-Utz et al (2018) [ 19 ] did not include a measure of dissociation, the current study aimed to address this gap.…”