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Parenting in Patients with Borderline Personality Disorder, Sequelae for the Offspring and Approaches to Treatment and Prevention

  • Personality Disorders (K Bertsch, Section Editor)
  • Published:
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Abstract

Purpose of Review

We review recent findings concerning the implications of borderline personality disorder (BPD) on parenting behaviors, the parent-child relationships, and parental and child outcomes. We focus on self-report and interview data characterizing parents with BPD and their children as well as on observational paradigms investigating parent-child relationships and the quality of dyadic interactions. Novel treatment approaches are discussed.

Recent Findings

Parents with BPD suffer from increased parenting stress and display characteristic behavioral patterns towards their children, impeding the formation of a healthy parent-child relationship and disrupting offspring emotional development. Offspring are at greater risk of maltreatment and developing BPD themselves, with parental affective instability playing a substantial mediating role.

Summary

Mothers with BPD face a meaningful burden in their parenting role. Mechanisms of the transmission of BPD pathology onto the following generation are beginning to be understood. Targeted interventions have been devised recently, with preliminary testing producing encouraging results.

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Notes

  1. Tronick’s still face paradigm is a standardized, video-taped procedure in which following a 2-min period of normal interaction with her child, the mother is required to keep a still-face for another 2 min facing her child, again followed by 2 min of normal interaction.

References

Papers of particular interest, published recently, have been highlighted as: • Of importance •• Of major importance

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Funding

The study was supported by the grant UBICA-II from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research to SC.H. (BMBF 01KR1803B). The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research had no influence on the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of General Psychiatry, Center for Psychosocial Medicine, University of Heidelberg, Vossstr. 2, 69115, Heidelberg, Germany

    Julian G. Florange

  2. Department of General Psychiatry, Center for Psychosocial Medicine, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany

    Sabine C. Herpertz

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Correspondence to Sabine C. Herpertz.

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Julian G. Florange and Sabine C. Herpertz declare no conflict of interest.

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Florange, J.G., Herpertz, S.C. Parenting in Patients with Borderline Personality Disorder, Sequelae for the Offspring and Approaches to Treatment and Prevention. Curr Psychiatry Rep 21, 9 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11920-019-0996-1

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