Most personality disorder theorists believe that there is only one time period in a person’s life when narcissistic abuse can significantly contribute to the development of Borderline Personality Disorder. That time period is in early childhood before the age of five when the personality is being formed.
I am going to give a brief, very basic review of the theories of some well known infant researchers and personality theorists who address this topic.
Margaret Mahler (1897–1985)
Margaret Mahler and her colleagues date the development of BPD to a crucial period that she called “the rapprochement subphase of separation and individuation” at around age two (sometimes dated as 15–22 + months). She expounds on her theory and her research in her well known book: Mahler, Pine, and Bergman, The Psychological Birth of the Human Infant, 1975.
She coined the term “rapprochement crisis” to describe when children in this age group demonstrate ambivalence towards their primary caretaker because they both want independence yet need to return to their caretaker for emotional refueling because they get separation anxiety.
This period is commonly known as the “terrible two’s” because it can be hard to be a consistently loving parent to a child who has a public tantrum and screams “No! I hate you!” one minute then wants to crawl into your lap for kisses the next.
James F. Masterson (1926–2010)
James F. Masterson, the well known Developmental, Self, and Object Relations theorist, believed that Borderline Personality Disorder is caused by an interaction of three factors in early childhood—nature, nurture, and fate. He agreed with Mahler and dated its beginning to around age two. (The Psychotherapy of the Borderline Adult, 1988):
Nature—the child’s inborn temperament and genetic inheritance.
Nurture—The parenting the child receives.
Fate—Unexpected factors that interfere with appropriate parenting before the age of five (such as war or parental illness).
Masterson believed that one of these factors could be the primary cause or that some combination of these factors could be the cause of the development of BPD.
Daniel Stern (1934–2012)
Daniel Stern, a psychotherapist and well known specialist in infant development, devotes a whole book to the importance of the primary caregiver’s attunement to the infant and toddler: The Interpersonal World of the Infant, 1985.
Stern hypothesized that these early attunement experiences became solidified in the brain as a set of general expectations that he called the RIG—Representations of Interactions that become internalized as Generalizations.
The RIG affects the child’s sense of identity and what he or she expects from other people. From Stern’s perspective, the beliefs and behaviors we see in personality disorders can be thought of as expressions of that child’s brain based RIG.
Stella Chess (1914–2007) & Alexander Thomas (1914–2003)
Stella Chess and Alexander Thomas did a 20 year study on infant development. They identified three basic types of infant temperament: easy, slow-to-warmup, and difficult. They believed that many psychological disorders could be viewed as the results of a mismatch between the young child’s needs and the ability, experience, and expectations of the parents.
Most parents were capable of successfully parenting the “easy” children who were resilient and adaptable. Unfortunately, many fewer parents were likely to successfully parent the children with more difficult temperaments.
This implies that someone could theoretically develop Borderline Personality Disorder without having conspicuously bad parents if there were a sufficiently bad mismatch between the parents’ expectations and abilities and the child’s needs.
Punchline: Based on current information, narcissistic abuse that starts before the age of four could theoretically lead a child to develop Borderline Personality Disorder. After that age, narcissistic abuse can create all sorts of psychological problems but not any type of personality disorder.
Elinor Greenberg, PhD
