Specificity of Insecure Attachment in Adolescents With Borderline Personality Disorder in Psychiatric Inpatient and Community-Dwelling Adolescents.

Abstract

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) has been conceptualized as a disorder of attachment. However, the specificity of attachment insecurity to BPD in adolescents remains unclear. In this study, an inpatient sample (n = 521), of which 173 (33.2%) met the criteria for BPD, and a control sample of community-dwelling adolescents (n = 294) ages 12-17 were compared on a self-report measure of attachment security. In addition, hierarchical regression analyses were carried out to examine the incremental contribution of BPD symptoms, over and above internalizing and externalizing symptoms, in predicting attachment security. Results showed expected group differences such that adolescents with BPD evidenced higher levels of attachment insecurity to both fathers and mothers than psychiatric and community-dwelling controls. BPD features also incremented internalizing and externalizing problems associated with attachment security. However, because psychiatric controls also evidenced high levels of attachment insecurity, we conclude that while attachment insecurity is particularly salient for BPD, it is not necessarily specific to the disorder.