Transactional Analysis Journal

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Borderline Disorders of the Self: Toward a Reconceptualization

Reese Price
Transactional Analysis Journal 1990 20: 128
DOI: 10.1177/036215379002000205

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 Borderline Disorders of the Self:
Toward a Reconceptualization
Reese Price
Abstract
This article relates the development of
borderline disorders of the self to social/con-
textual factors, that is, factors in the social
environment in which the individual is
raised, usually the family. It emphasizes the
maintenance of family myths in the face of
neglect and/or abuse through double-binding
messages given to the child victim. In addi-
tion, constructs central to an object relations
theory of borderline disorders-including
negative introjects, projective defenses, and
failure to self-identify-are reexamined from
a T A perspective. Several case studies are
offered.
In discussing borderline and narcissistic
disorders of the self, several TA authors have
attempted to combine transactional analysis and
object relations theory (Haykin, 1980; Moiso,
1985; Woods & Woods, 1981, 1982). This ar-
ticle suggests that such attempts should be reex-
amined because they seek to combine
theoretical positions that have fundamentally
different understandings of how human
development occurs. For example, it is impor-
tant to distinguish between the developmental
model upon which object relations theory is
based and the social/contextual model for
development presented in Berne's work.
In addition, this article argues that the
developmental view promulgated by
psychoanalytically-oriented object relations
theorists is more a creation of theoretical bias
than of established fact. An alternative view of
the creation of borderline and narcissistic
disorders is presented which draws on factors
such as the maintenance of family myths in the
face of abuse and double-binding communi-
cations.
128
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Finally, some of the intrapsychic processes
that the borderline individual struggles with as
a natural consequence of experience within the
social context of the family of origin are
delineated.
Combining Models
Object relations theory developed out of the
psychoanalytic work of Sigmund Freud, which
placed it within the organismic model of human
development (Reese & Overton, 1970). This
model views human development as the result
of maturationally based, intrinsically directed
change. The organism matures according to an
epigenetic framework which follows a
biologically predetermined progression through
various levels or stages of development. The
sequence of these stages does not vary, and
each presupposes successful completion of
previous stages; earlier stages are preserved,
transformed, and reintegrated in later, more
complex and encompassing stages of
development.
The Kantian position reflected in this model
suggests that universal, innnate structuring
elements are either present at birth or unfold
during the developmental stages. Only secon-
dary attention is paid to the social context
because the environment is thought to provide
little besides support for the invariant unfolding
in the child of these cognitive/perceptual struc-
turing elements. Fixation occurs when the
necessary environmental factors are not present
to allow this process to progress. Thus, the fun-
damental organizing principles with which an
individual structures experience are determined
by the maturational stage he or she has reached.
The dialectical model of human development
with its social contextual emphasis provides
quite a different view of development (Baltes,
Reese & Nesselroade, 1977). Rather than view-
ing the individual as having been born
Transactional Analysis Journal
 BORDERLINE DISORDERS OF THE SELF: TOWARD A RECONCEPTUALIZATION
with innate ideas or structuring elements, this
model suggests that we are born with certain
possibilities for development that are organized
according to historically formed psychological
structures, where content is determined by the
social milieu within which the child is raised.
What a person becomes in the course of on-
togenesis is a wholly social product. Thus, the
"basic categories of human mental life can be
understood as products of social history-they
are subject to change when the basic forms of
social practice are altered, and thus are social
in nature" (Luria, 1976, p. 164).
The question we must consider is whether
Berne's explanation of human development is
consistent with the idea that the basic categories
of human thought are formulated as a function
of social context. According to TA theory, both
the structuring elements and the particular con-
tent of knowledge are derived from the exter-
nal environment. Berne thus places the basis
for development firmly in the social milieu of
the child. In so doing he commits to an
epistemology that is irreconcilable with object
relations theory.
An Alternative View
Mahler (1971) posited that borderline
disorders of the self arise because of failure to
negotiate the rapprochement subphase of
development. During this phase the child is
making the transition from symbiotic attach-
ment to separation/individuation. It is thought
that prior to this time the child does not have
the capacity to integrate good and bad aspects
of self and others. Failure to negotiate this sub-
phase results in an inability to view objects am-
bivalentIy, to experience in an integrated
fashion both good and bad in the same person,
be it oneself or another. The result is splitting,
where self and others are seen alternately as all
good and all bad, "with the concomitant
possibility of complete abrupt shifts of an ob-
ject from one extreme compartment to the
other-that is, sudden and complete reversals
of all feelings and conceptualizations about a
particular person" (Kernberg, 1984, p. 16).
This model views failure to negotiate the rap-
prochement subphase as a function of a lack of
maternal libidinal supplies (Masterson, 1976,
1981; Masterson & Rinsley, 1975).
This developmental basis for borderline
disorders may accurately describe phenomen-
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ologically how the borderline structures reali-
ty, but it raises serious theoretical questions by
explaining such disorders in terms of fixation
at a hypothetical maturational phase. On the
phenomenological level one can compare
Klein's (1954) good and bad introjects with
Berne's (1972) "fairy godmother" and "witch-
mother" (p. 134). However, one can also posit,
contrary to object relations theory, that split-
ting phenomena arise as a result of transactions
to which the child is exposed in the family. In
this model, splitting and its negative effect on
object constancy, as well as other phenomena
associated with borderline pathology, are
engaged in by the child solely as a response to
its social environment. For example, splitting
can be explained through social determinism,
where the fairy godmother and witch-mother
are inserted as electrode-like introjects (Berne,
1972, p. 134), or as the result of the child's
decision (Goulding & Goulding, 1979) about
how to structure his or her perceptions in order
to make sense of incongruous and often double-
binding social circumstances.
Masterson (1972, 1975, 1976, 1981) provides
one theory for understanding the social cir-
cumstances that leave the child unable to for-
mulatea coherentsenseof self and other. He sug-
gests that the mother rewards regressive depen-
dent behavior and withdraws libidinal supplies
when the child makes attempts to individuate.
This results in a rewarding object relations unit,
"RORD," that is split off from a withdrawing
object relations unit, "WORD" (Masterson,
1981, p. 134). These split object representations
in turn resonatewith split self-representations: the
compliant, nonindividuated, regressed self ver-
sus the self that is fundamentally bad if the child
tries to be autonomous. In this model, the child
attempts to deny the reality of the WORD and
to elicit the RORD through regressive and cling-
ing behaviors.
Although Masterson's model explains the
borderline individual's failure to self-activate
and take responsibility for his or her life, it does
not adequately explain the fundamental sense
of badness many of these individuals ex-
perience. It also does not address the high in-
cidence of dissociative phenomena seen in such
individuals (Kroll, 1988) or the overtly negative
and internally abusive introjects that some
writers believe are central to these disorders
(Adler, 1985).
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REESE PRICE
In Masterson's model, the child has a way
out: He or she can fail to become autonomous,
and by regressing can avoid rejection and/or
attack while being reinforced for such behavior.
Although Masterson's model appears to ac-
curately represent phenomenologically the
transactional field some borderlines encounter
in childhood, it fails to reflect the overwhelm-
ing reality many of these children face.
Three other factors appear to be crucial in
the formulation of self disorders: (1) the
maintenance of a family myth in a context of
abuse or neglect, with a marked discrepancy
between the social facade presented to the out-
side world and actual transactions in the fami-
ly; 2) the maintenance of double-binding com-
munication in either dyadic or triadic transac-
tional patterns; and 3) the child's creation and
defensive maintenance via denial of fantasies
of good enough parents in order to deal with
painful realities.
Borderline disorders often arise in a context
of overt physical and/or sexual abuse; a recent
study comparing multiple personality disorder
with borderline personality disorder showed
abuse in 67 percent of the borderline cases
(Schultz, Kluft, & Braun, 1986). The high in-
cidence of negative introjects which is a cen-
tral feature of these disorders reflects the strug-
gle these individuals have with an abusive past
where "internalized objects may acquire a
dynamic independence which cannot be ig-
nored" (Fairbairn, 1944/1984, p. 134). Such
introjected experiences are even more difficult
to deal with because family members often col-
lude with the abuser either to justify the abuse
or to keep it a secret (Miller, 1981/1985,
1980/1987).
The logic of family myths in abusive families
is simple and damning for the victim. The abuse
is either denied as real or the child is accused
of causing it. Thus the child is either mad
("crazy") or bad. For example, a client of
mine who was sexually abused by her father
was beaten for lying when she told her mother;
another was slapped across the face for being
a "little whore." In such families it is
understandably difficult for children to value
themselves and to feel they deserve to take in-
itiative in a meaningful way. Rather, they are
forced to collude in distorting and/or denying
reality in the service of the abusive family's
need to maintain a facade of social propriety.
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It is not uncommon for children to struggle with
the fact that their parents play respected roles
in the community while being abusive in
private.
Splitting is often used to deal with the hostile
and/or abusive realities in such families. The
family labels the perpetrator good, and the
abuse or neglect is either denied or defended
as justifiable. In either case, the child is bad
and at fault. The child's only out is to collude
in this betrayal either by dissociating and
developing amnesia for the experience or by
using splitting to deny that the abuser is bad.
This strategy exacts a high price, however,
because the goodness of the abuser becomes a
direct function of the perceived badness of the
child. These children are left with tremendous
retroflected anger and "vicious internal
voices" because, with no outlet, the anger is
turned against themselves (Clarkson, 1988).
The other mechanism central to the function-
ing of these families is the concept of double
binds. Watzlawick, Bavelas, and Jackson
(1967) defined double-binding transactions as
follows:
Two or more persons are involved in an
intense relationship that has a high degree
of physical and/or psychological survival
for one, several or all of them. . . . A
message is given which is so structured
that a) it asserts something, b) it asserts
something about its own assertions, and
c) the two assertions are mutually ex-
clusive. Thus if the message is an injunc-
tion, it must be disobeyed to be obeyed.
... Further, the recipient of the message
is prevented from stepping outside the
frame set by the message, either by meta
communicating (commenting) about it or
by withdrawing.... The situation is fre-
quently compounded by the more or less
overt prohibition to show any awareness
of the contradiction or the real issue in-
volved. A person in a double bind situa-
tion is therefore likely to find himself
punished (or at least made to feel guilty)
for correct perceptions, and defined as
"bad" or "mad" for even insinuating
that there might be a discrepancy between
what he does see and what he "should"
see.... Where double-binding is of a
long-lasting, possibly chronic dur-
ation, it will turn into a habitual and
Transactional Analysis Journal
 BORDERLINE DISORDERS OF THE SELF: TOWARD A RECONCEPTUALIZATION
autonomous expectation regarding the
nature of human relationships and the
world at large, an expectation that does
not require further reinforcement. (p.
212-215)
Originally it was thought that such double-
binding played an important role in the develop-
ment of schizophrenia (Bateson, Jackson,
Haley, & Weakland, 1956); however, this
theory has been eclipsed by biological models.
However, I suggest that double binds play a
central role in the formation of borderline self
disorders, with the result being that the child
is forced to distort and deny reality in a way
that compromises the capacity to develop an in-
tegrated sense of self and other.
Such double binds need not occur in a con-
text of physical or sexual abuse, but in such
situations it has the most damaging effect on
the developing self. For example, after being
sexually abused by her stepfather, one little girl
was beaten when she tried to tell her mother
and then was required by the mother to buy the
stepfather underwear for his birthday. Another
child, who witnessed her father beating her
mother, interposed herself between them in
response to a nonverbal plea from the mother
and because she feared the mother would be
killed. Instead, the child was beaten. Her
reward was an admonishment from mother not
to make her father so angry in the future. On
other occasions this same child was hit by the
mother she tried to save. Finally, a third child
was beaten by her mother when she tried to in-
dividuate and, when she regressed in the face
of such an attack, she was attacked by her father
for being a "lazy, good-for-nothing bitch."
The outcome of such untenable double binds
is a no-win situation for the child. Even when
exhibiting nonautonomous, regressed behavior,
the child is more often than not negatively la-
beled and attacked, although such behavior may
be reinforced and demanded by one or both of
the parents.
The other crucial dynamic in these families
is the need to deny trauma in order to protect
the image of the abusive parent as good (Bloch,
1979; Clarkson, 1988; Miller, 1980/1987). For
example, in the context of hypnotically induc-
ed age regression, I experienced a client for-
mulate a fantasy that her mother did not desert
her at age five, leaving her in the hands of
abusive grandparents. In a fetal position she in-
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toned, "My mommy is not leaving! My mom-
my is a good mommy!" She repeated these
words, eyes tightly shut, as the denial of what
was happening deepened. Breaking that fantasy
by repeating to her, "Your mommy is leaving,
you are a good girl and your mommy is leav-
ing" lead her into the agony of the abandoned
child's depression. The suicidal depression that
she worked through in subsequent weeks
pointed to both the power and need for such
tactics on the child's part.
Children deal with the unbearable reality of
neglectful or abusive parents by maintaining an
idealized image of the parents even if the cost
is to deny reality and/or to label themselves as
bad. The resulting splitting of reality-based
perceptions into good and bad by using denial
and/or autogenically based defenses is also used
by the child to lessen his or her anxiety and/or
rage. The child colludes with these social/con-
textual factors in a desperate attempt to adapt
to the social realities inherent in the family.
A Phenomenological Perspective
At the level of phenomenological description,
it may be possible to bridge object relations
theory and transactional analysis. This,
however, requires a description of the ways
borderline individuals attempt to structure their
intrapsychic representations of the interpersonal
domain in light of the social/contextual factors
in the family.
Predominance of Negative Introjects
The idea that a high incidence of negative in-
trojections is fundamental to borderline
pathology is not new (Adler, 1985). Other
authors have noted that the level of function-
ing in such individuals is determined by the
quality of their internalized object relations
(Divac-Jovanovic & Radojkovic, 1987), with
the borderline individual lacking representa-
tions of nurturing parental figures (Alden &
Osti, 1989). Indeed, in light of this article's
central thesis-that most borderline individuals
were abused in some fashion-Clarkson's
(1988) analysis of the child's negative Parent
ego state representations, where the "child
seems permanently under the influence of a
vicious internal parent" (p. 88), is particular-
ly germane. In the borderline individual such
introjected figures take on a life of their own,
as the following case examples illustrate.
13/
REESE PRICE
Leslie, in the second of four years of treat-
ment, developed night terrors accompanied by
panic attacks. A deep trance was induced in
which she revealed that her terror stemmed
from a belief that something was lurking under
her bed. Using imagery, she and her therapist
crawled under her bed and discovered a
werewolf, which was dragged into the light.
This part-self, which was capable of direct
communication, felt it could kill the client and
survive with impunity. When it and the client's
conscious self realized that their survival was
intertwined, the client's fear of homicide at
night disappeared as a treatment issue. Later
this dangerous figure transformed into another
internal representation of Leslie's father.
Eighteen-year-old Tina came to therapy for
various concerns, including sadomasochistic
behavior. She actively sought abusive males
with whom to engage in sadistic sexual
scenarios and indicated that only in being
brutalized by them could she find relief from
internal agitation and self-hatred. Exploration
revealed that the agitation was tied to an inner
voice that was unremitting in its attacks on her.
In two-chair work the voice identified itself as
Tim, who hated Tina for being a girl and who
felt she deserved punishment for being female.
He tormented Tina until she sought relief
through external humiliation and abuse at the
hands of a male with whom Tim, in his rage,
identified. Over several sessions, Tim's role
was renegotiated to be one of internal protec-
tor to Tina; this led her to stop playing the role
of masochistic partner to sadistic men. It is, no
doubt, relevant that Tina's parents dressed her
in boys' clothes throughout childhood and
called her Fred until she was 12.
These cases represent extreme forms of in-
trojectively derived abusive figures. In the first
example, the werewolf is a representation of
Leslie's father's rage, which was directed at
Leslie when she was a child. The second ex-
ample is more subtle and involves Tina turn-
ing her anger in on herself. She created an im-
age of herself as the boy she could not be, and
this image, Tim, hated and punished her in the
service of the parental injunction, Don't Be a
Girl. In both examples, the child was abused
in a double-binding family context.
Projective Defenses
The borderline is unable to integrate con-
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tradictory good and bad self- and other
representations. The resulting splitting involves
the projection of split object and self-
representations onto the here-and-now social
environment.
Moiso (1985) presented an excellent discus-
sion of the transference dynamics common with
such clients. His analysis of PI + as the pro-
jection of the omnipotent parent and P I - as the
projection of the sadistic bad parent is similar
to Masterson's concepts of the RORU and
WORU.
Another form of projection common in this
population is projective identification; the in-
dividual projects onto another "the aspects of
the self-representation of the rewarding or
withdrawing object relations parent while
simultaneously identifying with aspects of the
objective representation of the respective
rewarding or withdrawing units" (Klein, 1989,
p. 283). Identifying with the aggressor, an ex-
ample of this process, allows the child to ex-
perience feeling empowered rather than
helpless (Miller, 1980/1987) by "inviting" the
other person to identify with the disowned, pro-
jected representation of the self as a victimiz-
ed child. For example, a client commented that
she sometimes feels like she is her father and
subsequently experiences her four-year-old
daughter as herself. Her greatest fear at these
moments is that she will abuse her child just
as she was abused. Another client, after ver-
bally assaulting her therapist for perceived in-
adequacies, has a sudden flash of insight and
apologizes for treating him as she had been
treated by her mother.
Such projective mechanisms can cause
dramatic fluctuations and shifts which are in-
dependent of current environmental considera-
tions. A striking example of this involved a
hospitalized client whose father almost
smothered her with a pillow while sexually
abusing her. At one point this woman began
to scream, "I'll kill you," while covering the
therapist's face with a pillow. The therapist
repeated, "You are not your father" from
beneath the pillow while the woman screamed,
"Shut up!" In less than a minute, she removed
the pillow from her therapist's face and placed
it over her own in an attempt to smother herself.
Her therapist then attemped to remove the
pillow from her face, which led her to see him
as trying to smother her. This oscillating
Transactional Analysis Journal
 BORDERLINE DISORDERS OF THE SELF: TOWARD A RECONCEPTUALIZATION
transference-in which she identified with the
aggressor when attacking her therapist and then
saw her therapist as the aggressor victimizing
her-highlights the often confusing interactions
that result when such primitive projective
mechanisms are activated.
Failure of Self Identity
Individuals who fail to form a cohesive view
of themselves often exhibit dramatic shifts be-
tween different representations of themselves
with little capacity to integrate these elements
into a functional, fully autonomous self. Poor
boundaries between self and other around
responsibility for thoughts, feelings, and ac-
tions are common. Where self and other begin
and end is difficult to formulate in families
where such boundaries are blurred. The child
in such situations is more often than not reduced
to an extension of the parents. Fears of engulf-
ment and/or rejection make sense in families
in which the parents communicate the covert
rule, "Don't exist separate from my wants,
desires, and representation of reality." The
child who tries to become autonomous and to
perceive reality is rejected. The alternative is
to discount oneself by allowing one's reality to
become an extension of the parent's need to
deny and distort untenable realities.
Individualsgrowing up in such circumstances
are faced with an abiding sense of incompeten-
cy, undeservedness (due to a sense of fun-
damental badness), and fear of failure; they in-
troject opposition to any movement toward
autonomously generated success. It is difficult
for them to avoid depression because their
deep-seateddoubts about their abilities and their
denial of reality is coupled with unremitting
self-hatred consistent with injunctions ranging
from Don't Be and Don't Be Sane to Don't Feel
and Don't Make It. However, it is this inter-
nal reality that the therapist must join in order
to provide a meaningful context in which the
individual can grow.
The emptiness these people feel is revealed
in their struggle with aloneness. The constant
striving to find and maintain a stabilizing ob-
ject has been linked to abandonment themes
(Masterson, 1976, 1988), but often it is deter-
mined by more than simply a failure of object
constancy or fear of abandonment. Consider-
ing factors such as attack by internalized
negative introjects, flooding by images of
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abusive past experiences (Kroll, 1988), and
other anxiety-provoking dissociative pheno-
mena, it is not surprising that these individuals
strive to maintain contact with a primary other
in order to generate an external focus, thereby
avoiding painful internal realities.
Conclusion
The assertion that borderline disorders
develop as a result of factors inherent in the
family of origin involves rejecting the idea of
developmental fixation. Borderline phenomena
can be better viewed as a response by certain
children that entails structuring perception of
the social environment in maladaptive ways in
order to deal with incongruencies within the
family. These incongruencies need not occur
in a context of overt physical or sexual abuse,
although more often than not they do. The im-
portant factor is that such children grow up in
a matrix of double-binding, no-win situations,
where their experience is fundamentally dis-
counted. Such discounting is
no longer concerned with truth or
falsity-if there be such criteria-of P's
definition of himself, but rather negates
P as the source of such a definition. In
other words, while rejection amounts to
the message, "You are wrong," discon-
firmation says in effect, "You do not ex-
ist." (Watzlawick, Bavelas, and Jackson,
1967, p. 6)
The struggle to formulate a viable sense of
a worthwhile self in the face of such dynamics
is formidable. The myth of the scorpion sur-
rounded by flames seeking in its pain to sting
itself to death comes to mind with regards to
these individuals. That devaluation is a double-
edged sword with which narcissisticallydefend-
ed individuals seek to undermine the self-
esteem of others does not negate the fundamen-
tal nonacceptance of one's self that stands at
the root of these disorders. It is hoped that this
article has served to explicate both the dynamics
underlying the reality such individuals generate
for themselves as well as to provide another
view of the formulation of such disorders of
the self.
Reese Price, Ph. D., is a Regular Member of
the ITAA and Director of Clinical Services at
Mental Healthcare Services in Tulsa,
Oklahoma. Please send reprint requests to Dr.
133
REESE PRICE
Price at 1620 East 12th St., Tulsa, Oklahoma
74120, U.S.A.
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