Associations entre les pratiques parentales et les caractéristiques du trouble de la personnalité limite à l'adolescence : la perspective de la théorie de l’auto-détermination

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a severe and pervasive mental disorder characterized by instability in emotional regulation, impulse control, interpersonal relationships, and self-concept. While BPD has long been considered a diagnosis for adults, researchers and clinicians now acknowledge the presence of BPD during adolescence. With its two empirical studies, the present thesis builds on developmental psychopathology (e.g., dimensional assessment of BPD) and self-determination theory (SDT; ex., Ryan, Deci, & Vansteenkiste, 2016) to explore the associations between parenting practices and BPD features during adolescence, while taking into account other putative risk factors (i.e., sex/gender, temperament, socio-economic status, parental psychopathology).  Study 1 used data from the Quebec Longitudinal Study for Children Development and aimed to explore associations between three types of parenting practices (i.e., involvement, coercion, permissiveness) of mothers and fathers of 10-year-olds and three BPD features (i.e., emotional dysregulation, impulsivity, relational instability) when children were 15 years old. Maternal involvement was found to be positively associated with emotional dysregulation, while maternal permissiveness was negatively associated with impulsivity. Indirect effects (i.e., mediation pathways) of parental psychopathology (anxiety, depression) on adolescent BPD through parenting practices were also tested. The indirect effect of maternal anxiety on impulsivity through increased permissiveness was found to be significant. As for paternal depression, although the observed associations were only found to be marginally significant, they suggest that less parental involvement could act as a potential mediator in the relation between depression and both emotional dysregulation and relational instability.  In Study 2, our first aim was to explore associations between detrimental parenting practices (i.e., controlling, rejecting, chaotic) and BPD in 15-year-old adolescents. Results suggested that all three detrimental parenting dimensions were positively related to BPD, leading us to explore specific associations between these dimensions and each of the five BPD features (i.e., emotional dysregulation, impulsivity, relational instability, identity disturbances, hypervigilance). Each type of detrimental parenting was positively related to at least one BPD feature: controlling practices were associated with impulsivity and hypervigilance, rejecting practices were associated with relational instability and tended to be associated to identity disturbances, and chaotic practices were associated with emotional dysregulation and impulsivity. In addition, Study 2 aimed to verify empirically the role suggested by SDT (Ryan, 2005) of basic psychological need frustration as a mediator of the association between detrimental parenting and BPD features. Results are in line with SDT postulates but suggest that competence frustration might play a greater role in BPD development than initially thought.   Overall, these two studies suggest that all three parenting dimensions are associated with BPD during adolescence, but through differential links with specific BPD features. Hence, these results could inspire the elaboration of early intervention programs to curb the development of BPD in adolescents through the improvement of their parents’ practices.

Keyphrases: adolescence, borderline personality disorder, developmental psychopathology, self-determination theory, detrimental parenting practices, basic psychological needs, adolescence