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Attachment and borderline personality disorder.

¹Sub-Department of Clinical Health Psychology, University College London. P.fonagy@ucl.ac.uk

Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association

|February 24, 2001

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Caregiver reflective awareness fosters secure attachment and child mentalization. This capacity is crucial for psychological self-development and can be inhibited by early trauma, impacting borderline personality disorder.

Area of Science:

Psychology
Psychoanalysis
Developmental Psychology

Background:

Reflective function, or mentalization, is the capacity to understand mental states in oneself and others.
Secure attachment in children is linked to caregiver's reflective awareness.
Early trauma may lead to defensive inhibition of mentalization.

Purpose of the Study:

To outline the concept of reflective function (mentalization).
To explore the link between caregiver mentalization, child attachment, and the development of the self.
To apply this model to understanding personality disorders, particularly borderline personality disorder, in the context of childhood abuse.

Main Methods:

Conceptual outlining of reflective function.
Presentation of evidence linking caregiver mentalization to child secure attachment.

Related Experiment Videos

Application of the model to explain developmental psychopathology in personality-disordered individuals.

Main Results:

Caregiver reflective awareness promotes secure attachment and child mentalization.
A secure attachment allows children to explore and understand minds, forming their psychological self.
Inhibited mentalization due to early trauma may contribute to borderline personality disorder traits.

Conclusions:

Psychoanalytic therapy's effectiveness relies on enhancing patients' mentalization abilities.
Understanding mental states is key to finding meaning in behavior.
The model provides insight into the psychological impact of childhood trauma and abuse.