Traditional theories regarding the etiology of borderline personality
disorder have focused on poor attachment figures and/or traumatic
experience. The present review posits an additional pathogenic course for
this disorder. Specifically, the proposed mechanism involves a basic
disruption of the neural hardware that supports the formation and
maintenance of unconscious emotional memory, hardware essential for the
formation of early attachments. It is further theorized that this early
disruption has ongoing effects on both behavioral and concomitant neural
development. Within this model, adolescence is described as a period of
intense change that serves as the tipping point for the onset of
borderline personality disorder.