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Patients affected by personality disorders account for 30% of all those receiving psychiatric health care services. This special issue provides a state-of-the-art overview on today’s understanding of the pathogenesis, diagnostics, and treatment of personality disorders. The articles clearly show immense progress in detecting the neurobiological underpinnings of personality disorders and borderline personality disorder using modern research methods. These include epigenetic analyses and neuroimaging in addition to elaborate measures of behavior in and outside the lab. Most importantly, hopeful new developments in treatment interventions are presented, e. g. by specifically targeting ego-syntonicity and motivation in patients and including family members in treatment. This special issue will be of significant interest not only to psychiatrists and psychologists in the field, but also to all other clinicians working with patients affected by personality disorders.

This special topic issue summarizes contemporary research on the impacts of successful bonding and interaction between caregiver and child. There are strong indications that the ability for supportive interaction with a child might be hampered in mothers who experienced impaired bonding, negative parenting behavior, psychiatric disorders, or mistreatment in their own childhood. This publication consists of twelve papers highlighting the essential role of positive early interaction and experiences with a social partner for child development. It sheds new light on behavioral and biological mechanisms of healthy development in the context of early life stress and troubled rearing. It is dedicated to the significant issue of how interpersonal experiences early in life can impact both mental health later in life and the mental health of offspring. Parental Bonding and Dyadic Interaction is of special importance to clinical psychiatrists, child and adolescence psychiatrists, clinical and developmental psychologists, and researchers and practitioners. It clearly illustrates how early life stress can negatively affect the behavioral and biological mechanisms of healthy development.