Parenting Styles and Borderline Personality Disorder

Parenting styles can directly influence the development and maintenance of borderline personality disorder (BPD). Various empirical and clinical studies have demonstrated significant associations between maladaptive parenting styles and the development of BPD. Moreover, several studies have proposed that the presence of different mental state difficulties among BPD individuals’ parents, lead to the development of adverse dysfunctional interaction between individuals with BPD and their parents, especially expressing empathetic response issues and difficulties in providing a valid and safe environment. Additionally, mothers with BPD are found to show misbehavior with children contributing to feelings of abandonment and rejection and fragile self-esteem in children. Moreover, parental invalidation, including emotional and behavioral invalidating, has been suggested as a core element in etiological models of BPD which led to difficulties in the child’s social problem-solving abilities and cognitive impairments, as well as greater issues in romantic relationships in adulthood such as severe rejection sensitivity and frantic efforts to avoid abandonment. Furthermore, experiencing attachment disorganization and parental hostility in early childhood has indicated to result in severally dysfunctional abilities in cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and interpersonal competence in middle childhood and early adolescence contributing to the development of BPD.