First empirical evaluation of the link between attachment, social cognition and borderline features in adolescents

Sharp, Carla; Venta, Amanda; Vanwoerden, Salome; Schramm, Andrew T.; Ha, Carolyn; Newlin, Elizabeth; Reddy, Radhika; Fonagy, Peter

doi:10.1016/j.comppsych.2015.07.008

Cited by 87 publications

(83 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…Furthermore, the association between attachment security and mentalization deficit was investigated using an independent measure of mentalization in a sample of 259 adolescents admitted to an inpatient unit, and findings showed that hypermentalizing was significantly correlated with attachment insecurity, assessed dimensionally as CAI narrative coherence (Sharp et al, 2016). …”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Child Attachment Interview: A Narrative Review

Privizzini¹

2017

Front. Psychol.

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Attachment theory promoted an impressive body of research on the psychic developmental processes, resulting in studies on both typical and atypical development. Much of the diffusion of the attachment theory in the clinical field was related to the design of reliable instruments to evaluate the organization of attachment in infancy as well as in adulthood. Until recently, the lack of a suitable instrument to assess attachment in middle childhood as well as in adolescence hindered the expansion of research in these developmental phases during which the parent-child relationship takes on a different, albeit still crucial, role. The Child Attachment Interview (CAI), a measure that was recently designed to assess attachment at a representational level in middle childhood and adolescence, filled the measurement gap. The aim of the current review was to summarize previous empirical investigations concerning CAI in order to (a) provide an overview of the state of current research, (b) identify unanswered questions, and (c) propose future research directions. A narrative review was conducted to map the current research findings by searching for the term “Child Attachment Interview” in the Medline, Scopus, Web of Science, and PsychINFO databases, followed by a search in Mendeley. Limits were set to exclude dissertations, chapters in books, and qualitative or theoretical papers, while empirical studies were included if they used the CAI and were published in English language, peer-reviewed journals by July, 2016. The review, which ultimately included 39 studies meeting the criteria, showed that the CAI is a reliable instrument to assess attachment organization in clinical and non-clinical samples, thus providing a worthwhile contribution to the investigation of the influence of the parent-child relationship beyond infancy and early childhood. Nevertheless, the review pointed out a number of relevant open issues, the most critical of which concerned the CAI coding and classification system. In particular, some relevant questions arose about (a) how opportune it would be to maintain a distinct classification for mother and father, (b) coding challenges regarding both the father and the Preoccupied and Disorganized classification, and finally (c) the advantage of a dimensional vs. a categorical approach.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Child Attachment Interview: A Narrative Review

Privizzini¹

2017

Front. Psychol.

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“…It has been suggested that romantic dysfunction may be the most notorious example of the longstanding interpersonal impairments observed in individuals with BPD [42] . The study of romantic relationships among people with BPD is of clinical and economic interest as well as theoretical interest.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Within close relationships, several studies stress that people with BPD exhibit difficulties in engaging in healthy, romantic relationships when compared with healthy controls or people with other psychiatric diagnoses [42,43] . It has been suggested that romantic dysfunction may be the most notorious example of the longstanding interpersonal impairments observed in individuals with BPD [42] .…”

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confidence: 99%

Romantic Relationships of People with Borderline Personality: A Narrative Review

2017

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Background: Romantic relationships are one of the most interesting areas of interpersonal functioning in people with borderline personality. The aim of this narrative review was to synthesise empirical findings on this issue. Sampling and Methods: The PubMed and PsycINFO databases were searched for pertinent materials published between 1980 and March 2016. Thirty articles met the inclusion criteria. Results: Several longitudinal and cross-sectional studies showed that people with borderline personality disorder (BPD) or BPD traits had more - but less prolonged - romantic relationships than people without BPD. The stable relationships of people with BPD or with BPD traits were also less satisfying and more hostile than those of people without BPD. People with BPD or BPD traits had relationships characterised by insecure attachment and passive-aggressive communications. Personality disorders and anxious attachment were more prevalent among the partners of people with BPD or with BPD traits when compared with partners of people without BPD. Conclusion: Unstable and chaotic romantic relationships are at the core of interpersonal dysfunction in BPD. More longitudinal research is needed to delineate the relationship between BPD symptoms and romantic relationship dysfunction, including the modulating role of the partner's clinical features in such an association.

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“…Recently, several studies have also started to examine the RF"s putative mediation role linking insecure adolescent or adult attachment to BPD symptom expression (Carlson, Egeland, & Sroufe, 2009;Fossati et al, 2009;Fossati, Feeney, Maffei, & Borroni, 2011, 2014Sharp, Venta, et al, 2016). Fossati and colleagues provided three cross-sectional studies carried on community samples, examining the relationships between avoidant and anxious attachment dimensions and conceptual cousins of RF processes (i.e.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…preoccupied and fearful), is related to BPD diagnosis via alexithymia features, namely difficulties in describing and being aware of ones" own feelings, thereby hinting to impairments in RF. Finally, based on a multiple mediational approach, Sharp et al (2016) investigated the cross-sectional interplay between attachment, objective performance to a socio-cognitive task, self-reported emotion regulation and borderline features in a sample of 259 adolescent inpatients. They observed that, unlike emotion dysregulation, excessive RF capacities independently mediated the relation between attachment insecurity and level of BPD features in adolescence.…”

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confidence: 99%

Attachment and Reflective Functioning in Women With Borderline Personality Disorder

Badoud

Prada²,

Nicastro³

et al. 2018

Journal of Personality Disorders

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Insecure attachment and impairments in reflective functioning (RF) are thought to play a critical role in borderline personality disorder (BPD). In particular, the mentalization-based model argues that insecure attachment indirectly accounts for increased BPD features, notably via disruption of RF capacities. Although the mediation relationship between attachment, RF, and BPD is supported by previous evidence, it remains to be directly tested in adults with BPD. In the current study, a sample of 55 female adult BPD patients and 105 female healthy controls completed a battery of self-report measures to investigate the interplay between attachment, RF capacities, and BPD clinical status. Overall, the results showed that BPD patients pre- dominantly reported insecure attachment, characterized by negative internal working models of the self as unlovable and unimportant to others, and decreased RF abilities. Our findings further indicated that actual RF capacities mediated the relationships between adult insecure attachment and BPD clinical status.

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First empirical evaluation of the link between attachment, social cognition and borderline features in adolescents

Abstract: The study provides the first empirical evidence of well-established theoretical approaches to the development of BPD.

Cited by 87 publications

References 56 publications

The Child Attachment Interview: A Narrative Review

The Child Attachment Interview: A Narrative Review

Romantic Relationships of People with Borderline Personality: A Narrative Review

Attachment and Reflective Functioning in Women With Borderline Personality Disorder

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