This paper presents experimental tests of the Oregon delinquency model applied within a randomized design of an at-risk sample of single mothers and their elementary school-aged sons. In the theoretical model, ineffective parenting practices and deviant peer association serve as the primary mechanisms for growth in adolescent delinquent behavior and early arrests. Multiple-method assessments of 238 mothers and sons include delinquency as measured by teacher reports and official arrest records, parenting skills measured by observations of parent–child interactions, and deviant peer association as reported by focal boys. Analyses of the 9-year follow-up data indicate that the Oregon model of parent management training significantly reduced teacher-reported delinquency and police arrests for focal boys. As hypothesized, the experiments demonstrated that improving parenting practices and reducing contacts with deviant peers served as mediating mechanisms for reducing rates of adolescent delinquency. As predicted, there was also a significant delay in the timing of police arrests for youth in the experimental as compared to the control group.

The co-occurrence of conduct problems (CP) and depressive symptoms (DS) is an important topic in developmental psychopathology; however, research in this area is still in its early stages. Using data from a school-based longitudinal sample of 2,453 adolescents with five waves from Grade 6 to 9, we examined the prevalence, etiology, and consequences of the co-occurrence of CP and DS. A person-centered approach, general growth mixture modeling, was applied to obtain CP and DS trajectory groups. The risk factors and consequences of the co-occurrence problem were examined using the trajectory groups. As hypothesized in a nonclinical sample, a small proportion of boys (8.8%) and girls (3.7%) reported to be high in both CP and DS over time. Among the adolescents with the highest level of CP, only 6.3% of the boys and 6.0% of the girls experienced the highest level of DS. However, among those with the highest level of DS trajectories, 42.9% of the boys and 10.2% of the girls reported the highest level of CP, indicating a gender-specific risk of the co-occurrence problem for depressed boys. Psychosocial and family factors were identified as vulnerable precursors to co-occurring CP and DS, a finding in line with the multiple domain risk model for CP and the transactional model for DS. The study also found that adolescents with the co-occurrence problem were more similar to those with “pure DS” than those with “pure CP” in academic adjustment at the ninth grade.

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) represents a severe distortion in the development of attachment, self, and emotion regulation. Study of children at high risk of developing BPD may inform precursors to BPD. In a low socioeconomic status sample of 30 children aged 4–7 whose mothers have BPD and 30 normative comparisons, representations of the caregiver–child relationship and of the self, and emotion regulation were assessed with a story-stem completion measure. In contrast to comparisons and controlling for major depressive disorder, children whose mothers have BPD told stories with the following: (a) more parent–child role reversal, more fear of abandonment, and more negative mother–child and father–child relationship expectations; (b) more incongruent and shameful representations of the self; and (c) poorer emotion regulation indicated by more confusion of boundaries between fantasy and reality and between self and fantasy, more fantasy proneness, less narrative coherence, and marginally more intrusion of traumatic themes. In the sample as a whole, (a) a maladaptive caregiver–child relationship composite was associated with maternal identity disturbance and self-harm; (b) a maladaptive self-composite was associated with maternal self-harm; and (c) a maladaptive emotion regulation composite was associated with maternal identity disturbance, negative relationships, and self-harm. Results are discussed in terms of putative precursors to BPD and preventive interventions.

Although personality disorders are best understood in the context of lifetime development, there is a paucity of work examining their longitudinal trajectory. An understanding of the expected course and the genetic and environmental contributions to these disorders is necessary for a detailed understanding of risk processes that lead to their manifestation. The current study examined the longitudinal course and heritability of borderline personality disorder (BPD) over a period of 10 years starting in adolescence (age 14) and ending in adulthood (age 24). In doing so, we built on existing research by using a large community sample of adolescent female twins, a sensitive dimensional measure of BPD traits, an extended follow-up period, and a longitudinal twin design that allowed us to investigate the heritability of BPD traits at four discrete ages spanning midadolescence to early adulthood. Results indicated that mean-level BPD traits significantly decline from adolescence to adulthood, but rank order stability remained high. BPD traits were moderately heritable at all ages, with a slight trend for increased heritability from age 14 to age 24. A genetically informed latent growth curve model indicated that both the stability and change of BPD traits are highly influenced by genetic factors and modestly by nonshared environmental factors. Our results indicate that as is the case for other personality dimensions, trait BPD declines as individuals mature from adolescence to adulthood, and that this process is influenced in part by the same genetic factors that influence BPD trait stability.

The authors tested whether emerging borderline personality disorder (BPD) symptoms mediated the association between childhood physical abuse (CPA) and aggression among incarcerated girls. Participants were 121 incarcerated adolescent girls (13–19 years old). Three forms of aggression (relational, overt, and violent offending behavior) and exposure to CPA by a parental figure were assessed using self-report inventories, whereas BPD symptoms were evaluated using a structured interview. Mediation models, including tests of indirect effects, were conducted in which each form of aggression was predicted from CPA with BPD symptoms entered as a mediator. A divergent pattern emerged in which BPD symptoms mediated the relationship between CPA and violent offending, but not less severe forms of overt aggression. Relational aggression, although correlated with CPA, was not associated with BPD symptoms. Implications for the conceptualization and treatment of girls' aggression within the context of interpersonal functioning are discussed.

The precise nature and etiopathogenesis of borderline personality disorder (BPD) continues to elude researchers and clinicians. Yet, increasing evidence from various strands of research converges to suggest that affect dysregulation, impulsivity, and unstable relationships constitute the core features of BPD. Over the last two decades, the mentalization-based approach to BPD has attempted to provide a theoretically consistent way of conceptualizing the interrelationship between these core features of BPD, with the aim of providing clinicians with a conceptually sound and empirically supported approach to BPD and its treatment. This paper presents an extended version of this approach to BPD based on recently accumulated data. In particular, we suggest that the core features of BPD reflect impairments in different facets of mentalization, each related to impairments in relatively distinct neural circuits underlying these facets. Hence, we provide a comprehensive account of BPD by showing how its core features are related to each other in theoretically meaningful ways. More specifically, we argue that BPD is primarily associated with a low threshold for the activation of the attachment system and deactivation of controlled mentalization, linked to impairments in the ability to differentiate mental states of self and other, which lead to hypersensitivity and increased susceptibility to contagion by other people's mental states, and poor integration of cognitive and affective aspects of mentalization. The combination of these impairments may explain BPD patients' propensity for vicious interpersonal cycles, and their high levels of affect dysregulation and impulsivity. Finally, the implications of this expanded mentalization-based approach to BPD for mentalization-based treatment and treatment of BPD more generally are discussed.

The current study tested the impact of the transition to parenthood on growth in alcohol consumption from early adolescence through emerging adulthood. We measured age-related discontinuity in trajectories of alcohol consumption associated with timing of the parenthood transition, above and beyond the effects of accrued educational status, gender, and time-varying marital status. We also examined the impact of a familial selection factor for the transmission of alcohol use problems, family history density of alcoholism (FHD), on both risk for adolescent parenthood and risk for adolescent parents' continuity in alcohol consumption after the parent transition within a mediation structural equation model. Premature timing of parenthood had a distinct effect on emerging adult alcohol trajectories. Although participants who became parents as emerging adults showed role-related decline in alcohol consumption, those who became parents during adolescence showed a role-related rise in emerging adult alcohol consumption. Gender moderated adolescent parents' role-related growth in emerging adult alcohol consumption. Adolescent fathers showed an adverse rise in alcohol consumption after becoming parents, whereas adolescent mothers' alcohol consumption did not change significantly. FHD was related to high adolescent alcohol consumption, which mediated risk for the incidence of early parenthood. Finally, the adverse effect of FHD on trajectories of emerging adult alcohol use was mediated by a dual pathway: (a) developmental continuity of conduct problems and (b) early transition to parenthood.

Extended maternal separations before age 5 were evaluated as a predictor of long-term risk for offspring borderline personality disorder (BPD) symptoms in longitudinal data from a large random community sample. Early separations from mother predicted elevations in BPD symptoms assessed repeatedly from early adolescence to middle adulthood. Early separations also predicted a slower than normal rate of decline in symptoms with age. Other theoretically grounded risks were examined and shown to predict elevated BPD symptoms over the developmental trajectory. Long-term effects of early separations were largely independent of childhood temperament, child abuse, maternal problems, and parenting risks. These data provide the first prospectively collected data on the developmental course of BPD symptoms and suggest a series of environmental and other influences on these very disabling problems.

The main objectives of this study were to prospectively examine the relationship between externalizing (substance use and delinquency) and internalizing (depression and anxiety) dimensions and academic achievement (grades and classroom adjustment), as well as continuity over time in these domains, within a sample of wealthy adolescents followed from 10th to 12th grades (n = 256). In both parts of the study, cluster analyses were used to group participants at 10th grade and then group differences were evaluated on adjustment outcomes over time. In Part 1, problem behavior clusters revealed differences on academic indices with the two marijuana using groups—marijuana users and multiproblem youth—exhibiting the worst academic outcomes at all three waves. For Part 2, the two lowest achieving groups reported the highest distress across all externalizing dimensions over time. Stability across the three waves was found for both personal and academic competence as well as the associations between these two domains. Results are discussed in relation to intervention efforts targeting wealthy students at risk.