Object constancy in adolescents with borderline personality disorder pathology

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Psychiatry
• Developmental Psychology

Background:

• Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is characterized by persistent interpersonal difficulties.
• Object constancy, the ability to maintain feelings of closeness when a person is absent, is theorized to be insufficient in BPD.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if feelings of closeness (FC) toward mothers and best friends in adolescents with BPD pathology are more dependent on recent contact compared to healthy controls.
• To explore the influence of different contact modes (in-person, phone, written) on FC in adolescents with BPD pathology.

Main Methods:

• A study involving 52 female adolescents (aged 14-18) with varying levels of BPD symptoms and healthy controls.
• Participants completed e-diaries multiple times daily over two weekends.
• Multilevel mixed-effect regression analyses were used to analyze the data.

Main Results:

• Higher BPD symptom counts correlated with greater dependency of FC toward best friends on actual contact.
• BPD pathology did not significantly affect the dependency of FC toward mothers on actual contact.
• For adolescents with more BPD symptoms, FC with best friends was more dependent on in-person contact than written or no contact.

Conclusions:

• Findings partially support the theory of insufficient object constancy in BPD, particularly in adolescent peer relationships.
• The study highlights the differential impact of contact modes on feelings of closeness in BPD.
• Further research with larger samples is needed to replicate findings, especially regarding the mode of contact's influence.