World Painting Of The Border Client

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Illusions attract us to those

that relieve pain …

Z. Freud

Have you ever met a borderline client in therapy and life?

If yes, then it is unlikely that you did not remember this meeting and this person. Such people leave noticeable traces in their memory.

It should be noted right away that the article is not about borderline personality disorder, which is one of the forms of personality disorder, but about the borderline level of personality organization, known to psychologists from the works of Nancy McWilliams. The borderline level of personality organization occupies an intermediate, transitional state between the neurotic and psychotic levels. Deutsch was one of the first to mention borderline clients in psychotherapy, calling such patients "as if individuals." These patients, in her opinion, are variants of anomalous distorted personalities. They are not accepted forms of neurosis, and they are too adapted to reality to be called psychotic.

Currently, the diagnosis of borderline clients is mainly based on a clinical approach. This approach is based on the identification of diagnostic signs-symptoms and is reflected in the modern classifiers of mental disorders (ICD and DSM).

The subject of our attention in this article will be a phenomenological approach that focuses on experiences, phenomena of consciousness of both the borderline client and the Other person who is in contact with the borderline one. The focus of attention in this case will be focused on the client's experiences of himself, the other and the world.

I suggest looking through the eyes of a borderline client at the World, other people, and yourself

Before talking about the phenomenology of the borderline client, I propose to focus on some general features that are generally characteristic of the borderline level of personality organization, regardless of the existing clinical forms or types. In my opinion, they are as follows:

Common signs:

1. The polarity of consciousness - as a result, the borderline splits in perception all the objects of the world into good and bad, good and evil, black and white, etc. Unrepresentation in the perception of the borderline client of shades.

2. Egocentrism. I am a borderline client infantile, did not reach the level of decentration in development, which is manifested in the inability of the latter to take the point of view of the Other and the impossibility of empathy.

3. The tendency to idealize. The borderline client is characterized by some violation of contact with reality, which manifests itself in attributing to objects of the world and the world as a whole their desired idealized characteristics.

The highlighted general psychological characteristics of the borderline client will find their embodiment in his experiences of the world, himself and another person. We can notice the content of these global structural constructs of consciousness already during the first meeting with the client, referring to his texts. The following questions will be diagnostically significant here: “Tell us about yourself, what kind of person are you?”, “What kind of man / woman are you?”, “Tell about people close to you, mother, father?”, “What do you think about the world, what is it? etc. There may be various variations of the questions, the answers to which would make it possible to form the client's ideas about the world, another person, about himself.

Let's consider the highlighted constructs of consciousness in a more meaningful way.

Phenomenology of the Edge Client

IMAGE I

For a client of the borderline level, a diffuse identity will be characteristic, which will be characterized by a non-integrated (non-integral) and undifferentiated image of his Self. An undifferentiated image of the Self at the cognitive level will manifest itself in the fact that a person's knowledge about himself will be fragmentary, fragmentary, contradictory. On an emotional level, this will manifest itself as an unstable, unstable, contradictory attitude towards oneself, dependent on the opinions of other people. Borderline clients always have conflicting self-esteem: “I am unique and mediocre. I am genius and talentless. I am grandiose and insignificant, etc."

For a healthy person self-perceptions will be:

1. Differentiated and holistic. (The first dialectical contradiction) (“I am different, I am such and such, but all this is I, I accept everyone.” E. Yevtushenko has a poem, which, in my opinion, very accurately reflects the phenomenology of the mature identity of a mentally healthy person: "I am different, I am overworked and idle. I am purposeful and inexpedient. I am all incompatible, uncomfortable. Shy and arrogant, evil and kind …";

2. Stable and flexible. (Second dialectical contradiction). (I am what I am, I know who I am and what I am, but I can change, selectively rebuild myself ).

In early childhood, such clients lacked a number of empathically supportive, accepting objects that contained chaotic, uncontrollable emotionality, which led to pathological splitting of experience and, as a result, the non-inclusion in the image of the I of some unacceptable, unworthy from the point of view of the parents, feelings, drives and qualities of the I. What you cannot experience and accept, make a part of your I, you have to split off and intensively control for the rest of your life. The borderline person tries to control those feelings, drives, qualities that were not properly contained and differentiated by the significant environment. In the end, most territory I turns out to be alienated, the I consists of separate, weakly or generally unconscious "pieces", not integrated into a single whole.

IMAGE OF ANOTHER.

For the image of another person, as well as for the image of the Self, all the same polarity and non-integration will be characteristic. As a result, Others in the mind of the borderline client will clearly and unambiguously divide into “friends and foes,” “good and bad,” “red and white, and so on. At the same time, “ours” will be idealized, while “others” will be depreciated. The assessments attributed to other people will differ not only unambiguously, but also categorically.

The diffuseness of the Other will manifest itself in the non-allocation of the versatile qualities of the other, in the generalized characteristics of the Other characteristic of borderline clients: “My mother? “An ordinary woman”, “My father? - Alcoholic. All the variety of qualities of the Other is reduced to one line, like a tag attached to another person by the borderline.

Lying on the surface indifference to the Other is combined with a deep, poorly perceived longing for the Other and a close relationship with him.

It’s a longing for a symbiotic relationship that is unconditionally loved and accepted. The absence of parents sensitive to the child's self led him to emotional undernourishment. The other eventually becomes vital, but not important. Importance presupposes the value of the Other, but this attitude can appear only if the need of the Other is overcome, without which the child cannot survive.

The polarity of the Other's image in the borderline client will also manifest itself in a contradictory attitude towards the therapist. Due to the splitting of the image of the Other into "good" and "bad", the client will slide on the swing of idealization and devaluation in relation to the therapist.

IMAGE OF THE WORLD

The real world, in the eyes of the borderline client, is imperfect and unfair. But the ideal one is bright and colorful. Longing for an ideal world is manifested in their inherent intention to change the world to suit their fantasies about it. Frontier people are fighters for change, the improvement of the world, idealists and revolutionaries, fans, "lovers of truth" who never for a second doubt their truth. Having become physically adults, they remain psychologically children, who, according to the ideas of Melanie Klein, did not overcome the schizoid-paranoid stage in their development, remained fixed on it.

At the next stage of development - the depressive one - the child manages to overcome the splitting of the object into "bad and good", to face this contradiction and, as a result, accepting, reconciled with this contradiction, gain the constancy of the object. The borderline people, all their lives, continue to split the world into a good, ideal, desired, but unattainable, and a bad - real, unacceptable, imperfect and unjust.

Most Frequently Experienced Feelings by the Borderline Client

Depending on the situation, the borderline client may have the following feelings of varying intensity.

Longing - Despair. The anguish of the borderline client because of the inability to be accepted, loved by a significant Other. Despair is the despair of an undernourished baby, always hungry, but unable to eat. It takes trust to eat. The trust turned out to be unformed, since there was no acceptance from the side of significant objects.

Irritation – Rage … The world and people are unfair in the eyes of the borderline client because they do not live up to their idealized expectations. As a consequence of this, irritation from not accepting the imperfect world, the Other, oneself to rage - the desire to destroy such a world, another person and oneself as imperfect and worthless.

Phenomenology of the therapist

It is difficult for another to be in a relationship with the borderline due to its above-discussed features. In relationships, the borderline person seeks to make them perfect. Due to the desire to idealize the borderline, it is impossible for the Other to have the right to make mistakes, it is impossible to be himself, imperfect.

The Other's ability to be Other cannot be integrated by the borderline. The other is needed as an object confirming the very existence of the Self. Such people fail to free themselves from their parents; they are always looking for their attention and approval. They are always looking for the perfect Other, who is completely at their disposal 24 hours a day (the need of a 2-year-old child).

The border guard's acute need for the Other translates into his control. Another, as already noted, needed but not valuable therefore, it is impossible for the borderline client to establish an I-Thou relationship. The other finds himself in the Procrustean bed of the borderline idealization. Unsurprisingly, failing to meet its high demands, the Other falls into the polarity of depreciation.

The therapist is no exception here. The borderline client in contact with him behaves like a small child, naughty, provocative, border-crossing. Infantile, with a pronounced external locus of control, not accepting responsibility for himself, demanding, devaluing, reproaching - these are some of the most striking features of the borderline.

Unsurprisingly, a sensitive therapist will soon develop a lot of irritation and even aggression.

Borderline psychotherapy is not easy, even for an experienced professional. We have to face strong depreciation, provocations, seductions, attempts to violate professional and personal boundaries and contain, contain …

In the next article I will describe the psychotherapy of the borderline client.