Reciprocal effects of parenting and borderline personality disorder symptoms in adolescent girls

Abstract

Theories of borderline personality disorder (BPD) postulate that high-risk transactions between caregiver and child are important for the development and maintenance of the disorder. Little empirical evidence exists regarding the reciprocal effects of parenting on the development of BPD symptoms in adolescence. The impact of child and caregiver characteristics on this reciprocal relationship is also unknown. Thus, the current study examines bidirectional effects of parenting, specifically harsh punishment practices and caregiver low warmth, and BPD symptoms in girls aged 14–17 years based on annual, longitudinal data from the Pittsburgh Girls Study (N = 2,451) in the context of child and caregiver characteristics. We examined these associations through the use of autoregressive latent trajectory models to differentiate time-specific variations in BPD symptoms and parenting from the stable processes that steadily influence repeated measures within an individual. The developmental trajectories of BPD symptoms and parenting were moderately associated, suggesting a reciprocal relationship. There was some support for time-specific elevations in BPD symptoms predicting subsequent increases in harsh punishment and caregiver low warmth. There was little support for increases in harsh punishment and caregiver low warmth predicting subsequent elevations in BPD symptoms. Child impulsivity and negative affectivity, and caregiver psychopathology were related to parenting trajectories, while only child characteristics predicted BPD trajectories. The results highlight the stability of the reciprocal associations between parenting and BPD trajectories in adolescent girls and add to our understanding of the longitudinal course of BPD in youth.

Affective behavior during mother–daughter conflict and borderline personality disorder severity across adolescence.

“…This pattern of decrease in BPD severity scores over the course of adolescence may reflect normative developmental maturation in emotion regulation, behavioral inhibition, and social skills during the adolescent period. However, the significant decrease in BPD severity scores from ages 15-17 that we observed contradicts recent reports that mean levels of BPD severity scores remain relatively stable across ages 14-17 in large community samples (Bornolova, Hicks, Iacono, & McGue, 2009), including the larger PGS study sample (Stepp et al, in press). This discrepancy may be to due to recruiting a more at-risk sample for this substudy, oversampling for participants with high levels of affective instability, rather than the larger community sample.…”

“…Positive and negative aspects of the dyadic relationship are likely impacted by both partners. Perhaps during adolescence, the nature and quality of the parent-adolescent relationship is more strongly influenced by the adolescent than the parent (Stepp et al, in press). Future research should continue to investigate this possibility and incorporate additional measures of adolescent and maternal psychopathology, temperament, and attachment in order to examine the complex pathways leading to the development and maintenance of BPD severity scores across adolescence.…”

“…Consistent with the reciprocal nature of parenting and BPD symptoms in adolescent girls (Stepp et al, in press), it is critical to recognize that parental affective behaviors are likely to be both a contributing factor in the development of BPD and a response to BPD symptoms in youth. Adolescents with BPD features may behave in ways that make supportive, validating parenting quite challenging.…”

Maternal borderline personality disorder symptoms and convergence between observed and reported infant negative emotional expressions.

“…Finally, given how rapidly children develop during the first few years of life, extending these assessments into the toddlerhood and preschool periods may be fruitful to explore reciprocal relations between child emotional expressions and maternal perceptions of offspring emotions among mothers with a range of BPD symptoms. Specifically, prospective studies that follow mother-child dyads across time and throughout development will help elucidate the implications of greater convergence or divergence between mother-reported and observed infant emotions on later parenting practices and child outcomes (Stepp et al, 2014). …”

Prevalence rates of childhood protective factors in adolescents with BPD, psychiatrically healthy adolescents and adults with BPD

“…Adolescents with BPD are also more likely to report experiences of harsh parenting practices (e.g., harsh punishment, low warmth, etc.) than those without BPD (e.g., Ludolph et al, 1990; Stepp, Whalen, Scott, Zalewski, Loeber, & Hipwell, 2014; Zweig-Frank & Paris, 1991), and emerging evidence suggests that this relationship between adolescent BPD symptoms and parental harshness appears to be bidirectional (Stepp et al, 2014). …”