Borderline Personality Disorder

Greenberg on BPD

Major issues

• Continuous search for reparenting (love, nurturance) leads to clinging to other people and neglecting themselves
• Want others to take on their responsibilities

Main goals

• Find someone to give them love and nurturing
• Avoid abandonment and engulfment

Difficult times

• When they are required to self-activate*, structure their lives and act independently

Major defenses

• Splitting, denial, clinging & distancing
• Impulsivity as a distraction

Secret fears

• That they are unlovable
• If they self-activate and become a fully independent adult, they or their caregiver figure will “die or go crazy”

Contribution to the world

• Bring passion and liveliness
• “Their clinging is the glue that holds many families together”
• Creativity

Interpersonal gestalt (The primary focus for the person with BPD during social interactions)

• Cues that involved the potential to be loved and nurtured or abandoned and engulfed

Motto

• “You do it for me; it’s too hard”

* Self activation is “the ability to identify and act on one’s true needs and desires and the ability to support oneself enough to stay motivated until one attains them” (i.e., taking care of yourself).↺

Subtypes

The Lovable But Helpless Child

• Goes through life “feeling like a helpless child in the body of an adult”
• Prioritises wants (fun, pleasure) over needs (adult responsibilities)
• Wants someone else to step in and take over their responsibilities, so acts lovable and childlike
• If they find that person, will eventually split on them and the relationship falls apart

The Ugly, Unlovable Child

• Has “almost given up on being loved”, feels like “an abandoned and unwanted child"
• “If you are going to reject them, they would like to get it over with quickly”
• Shows their worst side first to test if “they dare show you more of themselves”
• Often hostile and resistant

The Little Mother

• Completely revolves around being the ‘mum friend’
• Neglects themselves and their own wants and needs for other people
• Always tired, wants someone to take care of them like they take care of others
• Lacks assertiveness and boundaries

The Bar Fighter

• Always angry, always looking for a fight
• All ‘bad’ feelings (sadness, abandonment, fear, hurt, rejection, panic, rage) are processed & expressed as anger
• Prone to substance abuse
• Little to no awareness of their emotions and impact

Mnemonic: MISERY

M: Mother problems

• Fails to separate fully from caregivers & tries to get approval and attention from them

I: Identity problems

• Lacks an integrated self image which leads to splitting
• Underdeveloped & fragmented sense of self

S: Splitting

• Sees people (including themselves) as all-good or all-bad, preventing the negative from destroying the positive but leading to an incomplete picture

E: Engulfment and abandonment fears

• “All intimacy has the potential to be threatening because it is hard […] to find a comfortable, interpersonal distance”
• Fears engulfment (losing autonomy and becoming ‘engulfed’ by others) so distances themselves
• Fears abandonment so they cling and demand (splits between withdrawing and clinging)

R: Rage

• Tend to “experience themselves as having a core of inner rage that is boundless” but are passive because they “fear that if they did let themselves feel the full extent of their rage, they would go out of control forever”
• Rage leads to splitting which often leads to self harm

Y: Yearning

• Yearns for the “perfect other”, someone who will “give them unconditional love and acceptance; permission for separation; […] 24-hour devotion with nothing demanded in return”
• Yearns for the “perfectly loving parental figure” so that they can finally have the love and acceptance they didn’t get in childhood