How mothers with borderline personality disorder relate to their year-old infants.
BACKGROUND
Women with borderline personality disorder have conflictual interpersonal relations that may extend to disrupted patterns of interaction with their infants.


OBJECTIVE
To assess how women with borderline personality disorder engage with their 12 to 18-month-old infants in separation-reunion episodes.


METHODS
We videotaped mother-infant interactions in separation-reunion episodes of the Strange Situation test. The mothers were women with borderline personality disorder, with depression, or without psychopathological disorder. Masked ratings of maternal behaviour were made with the Atypical Maternal Behavior Instrument for Assessment and Classification.


RESULTS
As predicted, a higher proportion (85%) of women with borderline personality disorder than women in the comparison groups showed disrupted affective communication with their infants. They were also distinguished by the prevalence of frightened/disoriented behaviour.


CONCLUSIONS
Maternal borderline personality disorder is associated with dysregulated mother-infant communication.
Developmental Psychopathology Research Unit, Tavistock Clinic and Institute of Child Health, University College, London, UK. r.hobson@ucl.ac.uk
R Peter
RP
Hobson
Matthew P H
MP
Patrick
Jessica A
JA
Hobson
Lisa
L
Crandell
Elisa
E
Bronfman
Karlen
K
Lyons-Ruth
D000328:Adult; D001010:Anxiety, Separation; D001883:Borderline Personality Disorder / Q000523:psychology*; D016241:Child of Impaired Parents / Q000523:psychology*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003142:Communication; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008425:Maternal Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D009035:Mothers / Q000523:psychology; D016487:Parenting / Q000523:psychology; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D014743:Videotape Recording; D055815:Young Adult