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Perceived Invalidation in Adolescent Borderline Personality Disorder: An Investigation of Parallel Reports of Caregiver Responses to Negative Emotions

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Abstract

Childhood experiences of emotional invalidation are commonly reported by adults with borderline personality disorder (BPD). This study aimed to compare perceptions of emotional invalidation between adolescents with and adolescents without BPD, and their primary caregivers. Participants were 51 adolescents subdivided into a clinical group of 26 adolescents with BPD and a community-control group of 25 adolescents, each with their primary caregivers. To examine perceptions of invalidation, adolescents and caregivers completed parallel reports assessing caregiver responses to adolescents’ negative emotions. Adolescents with BPD reported more punitive and less supportive responses to their negative emotions than their caregivers. In the control group, by contrast, differences between caregiver and adolescent reports were due to caregivers rating themselves more harshly than did adolescents. Findings demonstrated that adolescents with BPD perceived their caregivers to be relatively less supportive and more invalidating than did adolescents without BPD. Results highlight the importance of adolescents’ subjective experiences of caregiving to enduring borderline psychopathology.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Developmental Psychiatry and Psychology, Department of Psychiatry, School of Clinical Sciences at Monash Health, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

    Clair Bennett, Glenn A. Melvin, Jeremy Quek & Michael S. Gordon

  2. Centre for Educational Development, Appraisal and Research, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK

    Glenn A. Melvin

  3. Early in Life Mental Health Service, Monash Health, Melbourne, Australia

    Naysun Saeedi & Michael S. Gordon

  4. Centre for Women’s Mental Health, The Royal Women’s Hospital, Melbourne, Australia

    Louise K. Newman

  5. Department of Psychiatry, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia

    Louise K. Newman

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  1. Clair Bennett
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  2. Glenn A. Melvin
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Correspondence to Clair Bennett.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Bennett, C., Melvin, G.A., Quek, J. et al. Perceived Invalidation in Adolescent Borderline Personality Disorder: An Investigation of Parallel Reports of Caregiver Responses to Negative Emotions. Child Psychiatry Hum Dev 50, 209–221 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10578-018-0833-5

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