Borderline personality organization and psychopathic traits in nonclinical adolescents: relationships of identity diffusion, primitive defense mechanisms and reality testing with callousness and impulsivity traits.

Although psychotherapeutic observation and empirical data suggest a link between borderline and antisocial personality disorder or traits in adolescents, there is no study on the relationships of borderline personality organization (BPO) and psychopathic traits in adolescents. The aim of this study was to explore the relationship of structural criteria of (BPO) as assessed by the French version of the Borderline Personality Inventory (BPI), with psychopathic traits, as assessed by the French version of the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale (LSRP), in a nonclinical sample of 243 adolescents. Significant correlations were found between the BPI scales of identity diffusion, primitive defense mechanisms, impaired reality testing, and psychopathic traits of callousness and impulsivity, suggesting that BPO may contribute to psychopathic traits in nonforensic, nonclinical adolescents.