Evidence map›Paper›PMID 40922031›Full record

ArticleBorderline personality disorder and emotion dysregulation2025

Maternal assessments of family climate in mother-child dyads: investigating the role of maternal borderline personality disorder in mental representations.

Anne Jung, Robert Kumsta, Babette Renneberg, Silvia Schneider, Nina Heinrichs

Abstract read
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Article in Borderline personality disorder and emotion dysregulation, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.

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0cells of the map it votes in
2citing papers in PubMed
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1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

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2 · The registry

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3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

2 citing papers in PubMed.

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4 · The record

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5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors.

Anne JungDepartment of Psychology, Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology and Psychotherapy, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany. anne.jung@uni-bielefeld.de.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8847-7484
Robert KumstaDepartment of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences, Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences, University of Luxemburg, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxemburg.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6006-6958
Babette RennebergDepartment of Education and Psychology, Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2177-3566
Silvia SchneiderGerman Center for Mental Health (DZPG), partner site Bochum/Marburg, Bochum, Germany.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0698-8411
Nina HeinrichsDepartment of Psychology, Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology and Psychotherapy, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8301-5798

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundFamily climate substantially influences children’s socio-emotional development. We examined mothers’ mental representations of their children and their relationships in three groups of mothers with young children (0–6 years): mothers (1) with a borderline personality disorder (BPD) (2), with a depressive or anxiety disorder but no BPD (AD/D), or (3) without a current mental disorder (CON). We expected both clinical groups to show more negative mental representations – more expressed emotion reflecting a critical attitude toward the child in general, more hostile attributions to child misbehavior in particular, and a less balanced view of the child (i.e., lower narrative coherence) – than CON mothers. We also expected mothers with BPD to have more impaired mental representations than mothers with AD/D.

methodsData were collected as part of an intervention study (at the pre-intervention assessment). To assess parental attributions, 172 mothers with BPD, 69 mothers with AD/D, and 96 CON mothers provided responses to vignettes and participated in a five-minute speech sample coded for expressed emotion and narrative coherence.

resultsBPD was associated with more criticism (OR = 3.17 and OR = 3.93) in comparison with CON mothers and mothers with AD/D, and with lower narrative coherence (OR = 5.45) compared with CON mothers but not compared with mothers with AD/D (OR = 1.41). Only narrative coherence remained significantly associated with group membership after education was controlled for. Mothers with BPD also showed more hostile attributions than CON mothers, with the AD/D group in between.

conclusionWithout controlling for maternal education, critical attitudes toward the child in general were specifically associated with BPD, hostile attributions were less clearly associated, and narrative coherence was transdiagnostically associated with mental disorders in general. Once education was controlled for, disorder-specific associations were no longer observed, while transdiagnostic associations were maintained. Early interventions may specifically aim to decrease levels of criticism, help mothers increase non-hostile attributions of child misbehavior, and support mothers in building more coherent mental representations of their children.

trial registrationThis study was pre-registered at the German Registry of Clinical Studies (DRKS-ID: DRKS00020460).

Indexed as

AttributionBorderline personality disorderCoherenceExpressed emotionFive minute speech sampleMental representation

Identifiers

PMID40922031
PMCPMC12418619

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.