La violence de la guerre civile : hôte du trouble de la personnalité limite

Abstract

This research addresses the impact of the traumatic events of the civil war in Lebanon on the reflective functioning of adults as parents and raises the question of the impact of this experience on the second generation. The main objective is to investigate whether the chronic exposure of future parents to the traumatic events of the civil war affected their capacity for mentalization (reflective functioning) and whether this reflected on early interactions with their children as well as on their mentalizing abilities later on, and predisposed them, as adults, to Borderline Personality Disorder. Parental mentalization is defined as the ability to understand, make sense of and interpret the child’s thoughts and affects; it’s also the parental ability to empathize in order to contain his distress. This capacity is generally affected by the traumatic experience of violence or abuse and is reflected on the child’s attachment during early interactions with him.
These statistical results were discussed in the light of related theories and compared with the results of other recent similar studies. They were also supported by the results of semi-structured interviews conducted with 10 parents who participated in the research and the respective results of their children semi-structured interview SCID-II.