Abstract
Early life influences have for long been suspected to play a crucial role in shaping adult life. A significant body of literature now supports the effect of early life influences on adult medical conditions such as obesity and heart disease. In psychiatry too, evidence now suggests a similar phenomenon. This is especially true for personality disorders which are now seen as a continuity of the patterns of tendency to feel and behave observed in childhood. A number of factors ranging from psychological to socio-economic and biological have been postulated as causal factors, mediating factors or simply associated factors. The present chapter attempts to discuss some of the basic theoretical foundations, the commonly cited factors involved, and the utility and implications for clinical practice.
Keywords
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsAbbreviations
- ADHD:
-
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
- APA:
-
American Psychiatric Association
- COMT:
-
Catechol-O-methyl transferase
- DOHaD:
-
Developmental origins of health and disease
- MAO A:
-
Monoamine oxidase
- WHO:
-
World Health Organization
References
Allport, G. (1963). Pattern and growth in personality. Pennsylvania: Harcourt College Publishers.
American Psychiatric Association. (2013). The diagnostic and statistical manual (5th ed.). Washington DC: American Psychiatric Association.
Anglin, D. M., Cohen, P. R., & Chen, H. (2008). Duration of early maternal separation and prediction of schizotypal symptoms from early adolescence to midlife. Schizophrenia Research, 103, 143–150.
Basaglu, C., Oner, O., Ates, A., Algul, A., Bez, Y., Cetin, M., et al. (2011). Synaptosomal associated protein 25 gene polymorphisms and antisocial personality disorder: association with temperament and psychopathy. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 56, 341–347.
Beauchaine, T. P., Klein, D. N., Crowell, S. E., Derbidge, C., & Gatzke-Kopp, L. (2009). Multifinality in the development of personality disorders: a Biology x Sex x Environment interaction model of antisocial and borderline traits. Development and Psychopathology, 21, 735–770.
Belsky, D. W., Caspi, A., Arseneault, L., Bleidorn, W., Fonagy, P., Goodman, M., et al. (2012). Etiological features of borderline personality related characteristics in a birth cohort of 12-year-old children. Development and Psychopathology, 24, 251–265.
Cannon, M., Jones, P. B., & Murray, R. M. (2002). Obstetric complications and schizophrenia: historical and meta-analytic review. American Journal of Psychiatry, 159, 1080–1092.
Caspi, A., Moffitt, T. E., Newman, D. L., & Silva, P. A. (1996). Behavioral observations at age 3 years predict adult psychiatric disorders. Longitudinal evidence from a birth cohort. Archives of General Psychiatry, 53, 1033–1039.
Champagne, F. A. (2008). Epigenetic mechanisms and the transgenerational effects of maternal care. Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology, 29, 386–397.
Chanen, A. M., Berk, M., & Thompson, K. (2016). Integrating early intervention for borderline personality disorder and mood disorders. Harvard Review of Psychiatry, Epub ahead of print.
Cloninger, C. R., & Svrakic, D. M. (2009). Personality disorders. In B. J. Sadock, V. A. Sadock, & P. Ruiz (Eds.), Kaplan and Sadock’s comprehensive textbook of psychiatry (9th ed., pp. 2197–2240). Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams and Wikins.
Cohen, P., Chen, H., Kasen, S., Johnson, J. G., Crawford, T., & Gordon, K. (2005). Adolescent cluster A personality disorder symptoms, role assumption in the transition to adulthood, and resolution or persistence of symptoms. Development and Psychopathology, 17, 549–568.
Crawford, T. N., Cohen, P. R., Chen, H., Anglin, D. M., & Ehrensaft, M. (2009). Early maternal separation and the trajectory of borderline personality disorder symptoms. Developmental Psychopathology, 21, 1013–1030.
Douglas, K., Chan, G., Gelernter, J., Arias, A. J., Anton, R. F., Poling, J., et al. (2011). 5-HTTLPR as a potential moderator of the effects of adverse childhood experiences on risk of antisocial personality disorder. Psychiatric Genetics, 21, 240–248.
Fazel, S., Bakiyeva, L., Cnattingius, S., Grann, M., Hultman, C. M., Lichtenstein, P., et al. (2012). Perinatal risk factors in offenders with severe personality disorder: A population-based investigation. Journal of Personality Disorders, 26, 737–750.
Gao, Y., Raine, A., Chan, F., Venables, P. H., & Mednick, S. A. (2010a). Early maternal and paternal bonding, childhood physical abuse and adult psychopathic personality. Psychological Medicine, 40, 1007–1016.
Gao, Y., Raine, A., Venables, P. H., Dawson, M. E., & Mednick, S. A. (2010b). Association of poor childhood fear conditioning and adult crime. The American Journal of Psychiatry, 167, 56–60.
Hill, J. (2003). Early identification of individuals at risk for antisocial personality disorder. The British Journal of Psychiatry, Supplement, 44, S11–S14.
Johnson, J. G., Cohen, P., Chen, H., Kasen, S., & Brook, J. S. (2006). Parenting behaviors associated with risk for offspring personality disorder during adulthood. Archives of General Psychiatry, 63, 579–587.
Kantojärvi, L., Joukamaa, M., Miettunen, J., Läksy, K., Herva, A., Karvonen, J. T., et al. (2008). Childhood family structure and personality disorders in adulthood. European Psychiatry, 23, 205–211.
Kasen, S., Cohen, P., Skodol, A. E., Johnson, J. G., Smailes, E., & Brook, J. S. (2001). Childhood depression and adult personality disorder: alternative pathways of continuity. Archives of General Psychiatry, 58(3), 231–236.
Kemppainen, L., Mäkikyrö, T., Jokelainen, J., Nieminen, P., Järvelin, M. R., & Isohanni, M. (2000). Is grand multiparity associated with offsprings’ hospital-treated mental disorders? A 28-year follow-up of the North Finland 1966 birth cohort. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 35, 104–108.
Kubota, T., Miyake, K., Hariya, N., & Mochizuki, K. (2015). Understanding the epigenetics of neurodevelopmental disorders and DOHaD. Journal of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease, 6, 96–104.
Kuja-Halkola, R., Pawitan, Y., D’Onofrio, B. M., Långström, N., & Lichtenstein, P. (2012). Advancing paternal age and offspring violent offending: A sibling-comparison study. Developmental Psychopathology, 24, 739–753.
Lahey, B. B., Loeber, R., Burke, J. D., & Applegate, B. (2005). Predicting future antisocial personality disorder in males from a clinical assessment in childhood. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 73, 389–399.
Lahti, J., Räikkönen, K., Heinonen, K., Pesonen, A. K., Kajantie, E., Forsén, T., et al. (2008). Body size at birth and socio-economic status in childhood: implications for Cloninger’s psychobiological model of temperament at age 60. Psychiatry Research, 160, 167–174.
Mäkikyrö, T., Isohanni, M., Moring, J., Hakko, H., Hovatta, I., & Lönnqvist, J. (1998). Accuracy of register-based schizophrenia diagnoses in a genetic study. European Psychiatry, 13, 57–62.
Mervielde, I., De Clercq, B., De Fruyt, F., & Van Leuuwe, K. (2005). Temperament, personality, and developmental psychopathology as childhood antecedents of personality disorders. Journal of Personality Disorders, 19, 171–201.
Meyer-Lindenberg, A., Buckholtz, J. W., Kolachana, B., Hariri, A. R., Pezawas, L., Blasi, G., et al. (2006). Neural mechanisms of genetic risk for impulsivity and violence in humans. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 103, 6269–6274.
Mhillaj, E., Morgese, M. G., & Trabace, L. (2015). Early life and oxidative stress in psychiatric disorders: What can we learn from animal models? Current Pharmaceutical Design, 21, 1396–1403.
Mitrou, F., Gaudie, J., Lawrence, D., Silburn, S. R., Stanley, F. J., & Zubrick, S. R. (2010). Antecedents of hospital admission for deliberate self-harm from a 14-year follow-up study using data-linkage. BMC Psychiatry, 10, 82.
Moilanen, K., Jokelainen, J., Jones, P. B., Hartikainen, A. L., Järvelin, M. R., & Isohanni, M. (2010). Deviant intrauterine growth and risk of schizophrenia: A 34-year follow-up of the Northern Finland 1966 Birth Cohort. Schizophrenia Research, 124, 223–230.
Moore, S. E. (2016). Early life nutritional programming of health and disease in Gambia. Journal of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease, 7, 123–131.
Mordre, M., Groholt, B., Kjelsberg, E., Sandstad, B., & Myhre, A. M. (2011). The impact of ADHD and conduct disorder in childhood on adult delinquency: A 30 years follow-up study using official crime records. BMC Psychiatry, 11, 57.
Pesonen, A. K., Räikkönen, K., Heinonen, K., Kajantie, E., Forsén, T., & Eriksson, J. G. (2008). Reproductive traits following a parent-child separation trauma during childhood: a natural experiment during World War II. American Journal of Human Biology, 20, 345–351.
Pesonen, A. K., Räikkönen, K., Kajantie, E., Heinonen, K., Strandberg, T. E., & Järvenpää, A. L. (2006). Fetal programming of temperamental negative affectivity among children born healthy at term. Developmental Psychobiology, 48, 633–643.
Pesonen, A. K., Räikkönen, K., Lano, A., Peltoniemi, O., Hallman, M., & Kari, M. A. (2009). Antenatal betamethasone and fetal growth in prematurely born children: Implications for temperament traits at the age of 2 years. Pediatrics, 123, e31–e37.
Piehler, T. F., & Dishion, T. J. (2008). Interpersonal dynamics within adolescent friendships: Dyadic mutuality, deviant talk, and patterns of antisocial behavior. Child Development, 78, 1611–1624.
Prinstein, M. J., Boergers, J., Spirito, A., Little, T. D., & Grapentine, W. L. (2000). Peer functioning, family dysfunction, and psychological symptoms in a risk factor model for adolescent inpatients’ suicidal ideation severity. Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 29, 392–405.
Pyhälä, R., Räikkönen, K., Pesonen, A. K., Heinonen, K., Hovi, P., Eriksson, J. G., et al. (2009). Behavioral inhibition and behavioral approach in young adults with very low birth weight? The Helsinki study of very low birth weight adults. Personality and Individual Differences, 46, 106–110.
Reti, I. M., Xu, J. Z., Yanofski, J., McKibben, J., Uhart, M., Cheng, Y. J., et al. (2011). Monoamine oxidase A regulates antisocial personality in whites with no history of physical abuse. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 52, 188–194.
Rudd, M. D., Joiner, T. E., & Rumzek, H. (2004). Childhood diagnoses and later risk for multiple suicide attempts. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 34, 113–125.
Salekin, R. T. (2016). Psychopathology in childhood: Toward better informing the DSM-5 and ICD-11 conduct disorder specifiers. Personality Disorders, 7, 180–191.
Samuel, D. B., & Widiger, T. A. (2008). A meta-analytic review of the relationships between the five factor model and DSM-IV-TR personality disorders: a facet level analysis. Clinical Psychology Review, 28, 1326–1342.
Stepp, S. D., Hallquist, M. N., Morse, J. Q., & Pilkonis, P. A. (2011). Multimethod investigation of interpersonal functioning in borderline personality disorder. Personality Disorders, 2, 175–192.
Templeton, A. (2006). Population genetics and microevolutionary theory. New Jersey: Wiley.
Thapar, A., Langley, K., Fowler, T., Rice, F., Turic, D., Whittinger, N., et al. (2005). Catechol O-methyltransferase gene variant and birth weight predict early-onset antisocial behavior in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Archives of General Psychiatry, 62, 1275–1278.
Tieman, W., van der Ende, J., & Verhulst, F. C. (2005). Psychiatric disorders in young adult intercountry adoptees: an epidemiological study. American Journal of Psychiatry, 162, 592–598.
Waylen, A., Stallard, N., & Stewart-Brown, S. (2008). Parenting and health in mid-childhood: A longitudinal study. European Journal of Public Health, 18, 300–305.
Widom, C. S., Czaja, S. J., & Paris, J. (2009). A prospective investigation of borderline personality disorder in abused and neglected children followed up into adulthood. Journal of Personality Disorders, 23, 433–446.
World Health Organization. (1992). International classification of diseases (10th ed.). Geneva: World Health Organization.
Zimmerman, M., & Spitzer, R. L. (2009). Psychiatric classification. In B. J. Sadock, V. A. Sadock, & P. Ruiz (Eds.), Kaplan and Sadock’s comprehensive textbook of psychiatry (9th ed., pp. 1108–1139). Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams and Wikins.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer India
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Sharan, P., Prakash, S. (2016). Childhood Antecedents of Personality Disorders. In: Malhotra, S., Santosh, P. (eds) Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Springer, New Delhi. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-3619-1_15
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-3619-1_15
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New Delhi
Print ISBN: 978-81-322-3617-7
Online ISBN: 978-81-322-3619-1
eBook Packages: Behavioral Science and PsychologyBehavioral Science and Psychology (R0)