RESEARCH ARTICLE Open Access rp f

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a serious psychi-atric condition associated with marked dysfunction across affective, interpersonal, and cognitive domains [1]. Individ-uals with the disorder are disproportionately represented in inpatient psychiatric hospitalizations [2,3] and it has been estimated that nearly 10 % of those with BPD complete suicide [4,5]. Given associations between this disorder and some poor outcomes, including suicide and hospitalization [2-5], theorists have prioritized study of its etiological origins, culminating in the consensus that BPD likely arises from complex transactions between biological and socio-environmental factors. One socio-environmental factor that has been identified in both DBT-oriented [6-8] and mentalization-based [9-11] developmental theories of BPD is the role of the family environment. For instance, Linehan [8] emphasizes a family system that neglects, mislabels, criticizes, negates, or dismisses emotional experiences and/or expressions, and Fonagy and colleagues [9,10] emphasize insecure and disorganized attachment relations as central developmental processes. * Correspondence