title: Borderline personality as a self-other representational disturbance.
abstract: A great deal has been written about the nature of borderline personality. We maintain that borderline psychopathology emanates from particular disturbances in mental representations-impairment in the ability to maintain and use benign and integrated internal images of self and others-and that these troubled ways of thinking drive the troubled interpersonal relations, affective instability, and impulsivity associated with borderline. Aspects of borderline self-other representational disturbances are present across a wide theoretical spectrum, and a number of research methodologies already exist to assess the phenomena. We conclude that borderline attributes exist on continua, and summarize important features as: (1) unstable mental images of self and others, often marked by self-loathing and attributions of malevolence to others; (2) interactions with others organized around a fundamental need for care that is felt to be necessary for basic functioning; (3) fear of others based on expectations of being mistreated and disappointed and/or terror of having one's identity subsumed by another person; (4) difficulty considering multiple and/or conflicting perspectives, with a tendency toward concrete, all-or-none, or black-and-white, thinking and distortion of reality; and (5) sadomasochistic interpersonal interactions in which a person alternatively inflicts suffering on others and suffers at the hands of others.
authors.affiliation: Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York State Psychiatric Institute, USA. bender@email.arizona.edu
authors.forename: Donna S
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Bender
authors.forename: Andrew E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Skodol
mesh_terms: D001883:Borderline Personality Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology*; D003071:Cognition; D003674:Defense Mechanisms; D006801:Humans; D007062:Identification, Psychological; D007063:Identity Crisis; D007175:Impulsive Behavior; D008960:Models, Psychological; D019964:Mood Disorders; D012649:Self Concept; D013694:Temperament