The Relational Context of Aggression In Borderline Personality Disorder: Using Adult Attachment Style to Predict Forms of Hostility (original) (raw)
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The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 2006
We characterized borderline personality disorder (BPD) along two fundamental dimensions of adult social attachment and evaluated attachment associations with childhood maltreatment and current symptoms using self-report measures in 40 outpatients with DSM-IV BPD. The BPD group had significantly greater dimensional attachment impairment and rate of fearful attachment type compared with a healthy control group. Among BPD subjects, dimensional attachment-anxiety was specifically associated with sexual abuse, whereas attachment-avoidance was associated with all five maltreatment types. The two attachment dimensions showed divergent associations with current interpersonal problems, impulsivity subtypes and mood symptoms. We conclude that (1) BPD is characterized by adult attachment disturbance; (2) these attachment problems are strongly related to childhood maltreatment, and to current interpersonal problems and clinical symptoms that are considered core features of BPD; and (3) the diverse problems of BPD patients may arise from two basic mechanisms, each tied to a different type of attachment disturbance, developmental history, and clinical outcome.
Brain Sciences
Insecure attachment and difficulties in regulating anger have both been put forward as possible explanations for emotional dysfunction in borderline personality (BP). This study aimed to test a model according to which the influence of attachment on BP features in a subclinical population is mediated by anger regulation. In a sample of 302 participants, BP features were assessed with the Borderline features scale of the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI-BOR), attachment was measured with the Experiences in Close Relationships-12 (ECR-12), and trait anger and anger regulation were assessed with the State and Trait Anger Expression Inventory-2 (STAXI-2). The results indicated that anger suppression emerged as a significant mediator of the associations between both anxious and avoidant attachment and BP traits, while anger control resulted as a marginal mediator in the association between attachment avoidance and BP. Suppressing anger may reflect different forms of cognitive or beh...
Attachment studies with borderline patients: A review
Harvard Review of Psychiatry, 2004
Clinical theorists have suggested that disturbed attachments are central to borderline personality disorder (BPD) psychopathology. This article reviews 13 empirical studies that examine the types of attachment found in individuals with this disorder or with dimensional characteristics of BPD. Comparison among the 13 studies is handicapped by the variety of measures and attachment types that these studies have employed. Nevertheless, every study concludes that there is a strong association between BPD and insecure attachment. The types of attachment found to be most characteristic of BPD subjects are unresolved, preoccupied , and fearful. In each of these attachment types, individuals demonstrate a longing for intimacy and—at the same time concern about dependency and rejection. The high prevalence and severity of insecure attachments found in these adult samples support the central role of disturbed interpersonal relationships in clinical theories of BPD. This review concludes that these types of insecure attachment may represent phenotypic markers of vulnerability to BPD, suggesting several directions for future research.
Psychiatric Quarterly, 2006
The intense, unstable interpersonal relationships characteristic of patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) are thought to represent insecure attachment. The Reciprocal Attachment Questionnaire was used to compare the attachment styles of patients with BPD to the styles of patients with a contrasting personality disorder, obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD). The results showed that patients with BPD were more likely to exhibit angry withdrawal and compulsive care-seeking attachment patterns. Patients with BPD also scored higher on the dimensions of lack of availability of the attachment figure, feared loss of the attachment figure, lack of use of the attachment figure, and separation protest. The findings may be relevant for understanding Cindy J. Aaronson, M.S.W., Ph.D., is affiliated with Springer Science+Business Media, Inc.
Journal of Personality Disorders, 2013
Emotional dysregulation and impaired attachment are seen by many clinical researchers as central aspects of borderline personality disorder (BPD). Alternatively, these constructs may represent general impairments in personality that are nonspecific to BPD. Using multitraitmultimethod models, the authors examined the strength of associations among preoccupied attachment, difficulties with emotion regulation, BPD features, and features of two other personality disorders (i.e., antisocial and avoidant) in a combined psychiatric outpatient and community sample of adults. Results suggested that preoccupied attachment and difficulties with emotion regulation shared strong positive associations with each other and with each of the selected personality disorders. However, preoccupied attachment and emotional dysregulation were more strongly related to BPD features than to features of other personality disorders. Findings suggest that although impairments in relational and emotional domains may underlie personality pathology in general, preoccupied attachment and emotional dysregulation also have specificity for understanding core difficulties in those with BPD.
Attachment and its Vicissitudes in Borderline Personality Disorder
Current Psychiatry Reports, 2010
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Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 2012
This study examined the prospective relationships among borderline per sonality disorder (BPD) symptoms, interpersonal problems, and types of aggressive behaviors (i.e., experiencing psychological and physical victimiza tion and perpetrating psychological and physical aggression) in a psychi atric sample (N = 139) over the course of 2 years. We controlled for other PD symptoms and demographic variables. BPD symptoms at baseline were associated with interpersonal sensitivity, interpersonal ambivalence, inter personal aggression, need for social approval, and lack of sociability 6 months later. In turn, interpersonal sensitivity predicted not experiencing physi cal aggression, interpersonal aggression predicted experiencing physical aggression and perpetrating both psychological and physical aggression, need for social approval predicted experiencing both psychological and physical aggression, and lack of sociability predicted perpetrating physical aggression 2 years later. Results demonstrated that interpersonal problems mediated the Article 104 Journal of Interpersonal Violence 27 relationship between BPD and later violent behaviors. Our findings suggest the importance of distinguishing between these groups of aggressive behav iors in terms of etiological pathways, maintenance processes, and treatment interventions.