Hope exists for people who have or deal with borderline personality disorders.
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That's the view of University of Wollongong student Kayla Steele, who has written a paper on parenting and personality disorder.
The paper was published on October 1 to coincide with Borderline Personality Disorder Week.
The "exhaustive research" found that children who are mistreated, abused or neglected are at higher risk of developing borderline personality disorder.
"I think it is important for people to know that this kind of research indicated that there is hope for change," Ms Steele said.
"Even though it is really hard to change things that you are born with, like biological or genetic conditions, we can address the way people relate to each other and particularly relate to their children.
"And, that is going to have a profound impact on the next generation and generations to come."
The PhD candidate in clinical psychology said she was passionate about studying parenting and the intergenerational transmission of personality disorder and complex mental health issues.
She said the Project Air Strategy for Personality Disorders looked at about 40 years on the relationship between parenting and personality disorder.
"The paper gathers information from approximately 120,000 participants made up of parents, children, adolescents and adults," Ms Steele said.
"The idea of doing this kind of research is so we can develop parenting interventions for at-risk parents to stop them from accidentally or inadvertently passing on things that have happened to them down to their children.
The aim is also to hopefully break that cycle of complex mental health issues.
- Kayla Steele
"The aim is also to hopefully break that cycle of complex mental health issues."
The research paper highlighted two major findings.
"Negative parenting practices are a psycho-social risk factor for the development of personality disorder and particularly BPD in later life," Ms Steele said.
"We also found parents with personality disorder and particularly mothers with BPD are at risk of engaging in negative parenting practices with their own children.
"So this suggests to us that it is really important to target parenting in the context of providing these kinds of parents with support and recovery.
"Parenting is also not something that can be ignored in the greater treatment plan for these kind of parents.
"So we recommend greater emphasis on parenting in clinical practice and the development of parenting interventions for individuals with personality disorder."
Agron Latifi
Wollongong born and bred. I love reporting about the Illawarra region and have been doing it for more than 20 years. I've moved into sport recently after covering the education round for the last five plus years for the Illawarra Mercury. It's been a great pleasure.
Wollongong born and bred. I love reporting about the Illawarra region and have been doing it for more than 20 years. I've moved into sport recently after covering the education round for the last five plus years for the Illawarra Mercury. It's been a great pleasure.
