Childhood trauma in borderline personality disorder.
Level 4 - case-series / case-control
Case-control study comparing patients with borderline personality disorder to clinical controls.
PubMed 2929750 · doi:10.1176/ajp.146.4.490
What was done
Researchers conducted in-depth interviews assessing major childhood trauma histories across three groups: individuals with borderline personality disorder (N = 21), individuals with borderline traits (N = 11), and nonborderline psychiatric comparison subjects with closely related diagnoses (N = 23).
What was found
Significantly more subjects with borderline personality disorder (81%) reported a history of major childhood trauma compared to the other groups. Among borderline subjects, reported trauma included physical abuse (71%), sexual abuse (68%), and witnessing serious domestic violence (62%). Abuse histories were less frequent in subjects with borderline traits and lowest in nonborderline control subjects (exact percentages for the control groups were not reported in the abstract).
Why it matters
This early study provided empirical evidence demonstrating a strong link between severe childhood physical, sexual, and domestic trauma and the clinical presentation of borderline personality disorder.
Limits
The total sample was small (N = 55 total; 21 with borderline personality disorder). The abstract does not provide exact percentages or statistical comparison metrics (such as p-values or odds ratios) for the comparison groups. Retrospective reporting of childhood trauma is vulnerable to recall bias, and the cross-sectional, observational design cannot prove causality.
Cited by
- context Harvard psychologist Judith Herman stated in 1995 that almost all psychological dysfunction fundamentally stems from trauma.