Marko Biberdzic

Assessing reflective parenting in interaction with school-aged children

ABSTRACT The aim of this study was to examine whether it was possible to develop a reliable and valid assessment of reflective parenting implicit in interaction with school-aged children using an adaptation of the Squiggle paradigm developed by Winnicott (1968) and a manualized coding system (Normandin, Leroux, Ensink, Terradas, & Fonagy, 2015). A total of 158 mother–child dyads participated when children were age 5 to 12. Of this group, 89 children had experienced sexual abuse. Interrater reliability using the manualized coding system was excellent. The factor analysis identified a reflective parenting stance factor, in addition to an affectionate support factor and a negative parenting factor. Furthermore, there was a medium strength relationship between the mothers reflective parenting stance evident in her interactions with her child and parental reflective functioning assessed using the Parent Development Interview (Slade, Aber, Bresgi, Berger, & Kaplan, 2004), suggesting the parental reflective stance is a good indicator of parental reflective functioning in interaction. With regard to parent reports of child internalizing and externalizing behaviors, the reflective parenting stance was the only predictor of internalizing difficulties and a significant predictor of externalizing difficulties in addition to sexual abuse.

A Developmental Psychopathology and Neurobiological Model of Borderline Personality Disorder in Adolescence

The antecedents and risk factors and for developing borderline personality disorder (BPD) are now well documented, but there is a paucity of developmental models to understand the key processes through which they impact on the development of BPD in adolescents. In this article, we present a developmental psychopathology model of BPD in adolescence and link the difficulties adolescents with BPD have with impulsivity and self regulation, with risk factors such as genetic vulnerability, parenting and trauma. We propose a number of psychological processes through which these risk factors undermine personal and interpersonal functioning, and makes it particularly difficult to engage with the challenges of adolescence. These key psychological processes undermine the integration of the self, with extreme unintegrated affects and extreme representations of self and others, undermining the capacity to mentalize. We then make links to possible neurobiological underpinnings of the disturbances in affect, Theory of Mind and interpersonal difficulties in adolescents with BPD.

Empirical typology of adolescent personality organization

The concept of personality organization (PO) is central to current psychodynamic understanding of normal personality development as well as the development of personality disorders (PDs). However, individual differences in PO have primarily been studied in adult populations, and it remains unclear whether the clinical indicators of normal, neurotic and borderline PO manifest differently during adolescence. This study aimed to address the gaps in current knowledge regarding the potentially different manifestation of pathological PO in adolescence. In addition, we wanted to further establish the validity of the adolescent version of the Inventory of Personality Organization, by identifying cut-off points for each of the main dimensions of Normal, Neurotic, and Borderline PO. Participants included 430 adolescents (M = 16 years old) from the community. Cluster analysis identified three levels of PO corresponding to Normal, Neurotic, and Borderline PO. Cut- off points between the different POs were successfully established using ROC curve analyses.