Relationship Troubles Start Early in Borderline Personality

by Susan Krauss Whitbourne Ph.D

Difficult relationships with others create significant stress for individuals with borderline personality, stress that can continue throughout their adult lives. If you know someone with this personality disorder, then you’re aware of how hard it can be to manage your ordinary interactions with them. You might make a seemingly innocent comment, only to have this individual explode in a torrent of verbal abuse. Eventually, these situations are so painful that you might decide to avoid contact with this person altogether. 

It’s this negativity that can become the central feature of borderline personality disorder (BPD), not just in the long-term but in the first few moments of new relationships. Heidelberg University’s Johanna Hepp and Pascal J. Kieslich (2020) note that the interpersonal dysfunction of people with BPD manifests itself “in a multitude of ways, including poor romantic relationship quality, high levels of loneliness, and social networks that are characterized by low support and high levels of conflict” (p. 1). Indeed, if your negative interactions involving someone with BPD occur in a relationship you can’t easily end, such as with an in-law, boss, or coworker, then you know you’re in for a rough ride when it comes to your own psychological well-being.

Although you might figure that the interpersonal problems of people with BPD don’t emerge until well into a relationship, Hepp and Kieslich propose that the fault lines begin to develop in the earliest moments of contact, or first impressions. People with BPD, the authors maintain, are constantly on the lookout for negative signals from the people they meet. Their negativity in judging others could help account, in part, for “the small and conflictual social networks observed in this population” (p. 2).

Conversely, people with BPD themselves may be judged more negatively by people they first meet. This perceived negativity leads non-BPD individuals to stay away from what they sense can become potential trouble. Unfortunately, by turning away, they only confirm the negative expectations of people with BPD, further compromising the world view of the person with this disorder. 

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Personality Typology and the Secret to Knowing a Person

All personality models are wrong. Some are useful.

In ancient times, Hippocrates of Kos, a Greek physician during the fifth and fourth centuries B.C., and Galen of Pergamon, a Greek physician and philosopher during the second century A.D., divided people into types. These types were based on, according to them, a person’s levels of what they identified as four vital bodily fluids necessary for nutrition, growth, and metabolism, primarily originating in the digestive process. These doctors believed that excessive levels of any of these fluids in a person resulted in certain, moderately predictable character flaws and strengths.

During the early 1900s, the Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung found great interest in the fact that he and his colleagues Alfred Adler and Sigmund Freud reviewed the very same clinical and scientific material and came to very different conclusions, which he wrote about in his book, Psychological Types. He sought to reconcile Freud’s and Adler’s theories and developed his own model in which a person is characterized by first assessing preference in their general attitude (i.e. introversion vs extraversion), then by preference between two functions of perception (i.e. sensing vs intuition), and finally by preference between two functions of judging (i.e. thinking vs feeling).

Nearly 100 years have passed since Carl Jung distilled the thinking of the ancients into the profound and soul-searching nuance of a (more) modern psychological model, yet Jung’s typologies have never been proven empirically. He based his theories on observation and anecdote and criticized academic science.

Jung wrote:

“Anyone who wants to know the human psyche will learn next to nothing from experimental psychology. He would be better advised to abandon exact science, put away his scholar’s gown, bid farewell to his study, and wander with human heart through the world.” (Jung, 1916

Trait dichotomies and the storied self

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Taking Our Seat: Cultivating Strength and Stability

Wendy O’Leary offers three gentle practices to touch in with ourselves, finding a strong foundation within a sense of equanimity. By Wendy O’Leary

How can the concept of taking our seat serve us in the midst of our current challenges? Many of us are familiar with this phrase: A meditation teacher may say “Let’s start by taking our seat” to signal the transition into beginning our practice. But it can also be meaningful outside of seated, formal mindful practices. I have been considering this perspective of “taking my seat” as a metaphor for developing the capacity of how I want to move through the world, especially now.

In taking our seat, whatever that posture looks like for you, we begin by establishing a solid base, a foundation.  We cultivate some stability, strength, and a sense of being grounded. It is this steady base that forms the foundation for the rest of our practice and our capacity to cultivate calm, insight, and open-heartedness. Once our base is established, we can begin to open up with balance and equanimity to whatever is arising. In practice, as in life, it is crucial to cultivate this sense of balance and stability so we aren’t buffeted around by the difficulties in our lives and the world. We are developing the capacity to be steady amid life’s challenges.

With this stability, we now have the framework to release and soften around that foundation. In softening and letting go, we begin to invite a sense of ease and calm. The inherent safety in the strength of the posture is supportive of ease, as we consciously cultivate calm through our practice.  This capacity to open and touch into our vulnerability is a key aspect of moving towards working with our experience in an open and loving way. As we move through the world with the support of a solid foundation, we can also now come to the edge of difficlut experiences and emotions and begin to soften and open to the vulnerability.

And finally from the stability and support of the posture and the calm we have cultivated in body and mind, we begin to see more clearly as we open to what is arising in our moment-by-moment experience with more grace, compassion, and insight.

Here are some practical tips to support you wherever you are in this process:

Cultivating a Steady and Solid Foundation

Body-based practices can be useful to support a sense of stability.

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4 Yoga Stretches for a Good Night’s Sleep

BY STEVE CALECHMAN

Before the pandemic, 25% of Americans suffered from acute insomnia every year, according to a 2018 study from the University of Pennsylvania. We can only assume that number has gone up. Bills, chores, work, technology, and now a global pandemic all conspire to keep our brains constantly on, when sleep needs the opposite. We try anything in order to settle down and let go of the day, from cups of tea to writing a journal. Here’s one more approach to consider: mindful movement.

Many studies have linked yoga with better sleep. Harvard Medical School sleep and circadian health expert, professor Sat Bir Singh Khalsa, notes that experimental trials have also shown meditative breathing can be a powerful sleep aid.

Khalsa has researched how meditative breathing can help with sleep, insomnia, specifically, and he found that it increased sleep time and decreased wake time. The study had its limitations. It used a particular breathing pattern: inhaling for 4 counts, holding for 16, and exhaling for 2, but Khalsa says that he can make a larger recommendation. Slow, mindful breathing at around 3–6 breaths per minute—normal is 15–20—could be effective for falling asleep. “Anything that slows down the breathing rate will help with decreasing arousal,” he says. And since most mindful movement and yoga poses are done with some form of slow breathing in this range, “putting two and two together, it makes sense,” he says.

And as Khalsa adds, there’s no reason to wait for double-blind studies. The fundamentals for any bedtime routine are consistent. One needs to unwind the mind and the body, so the autonomic nervous system is quieted down and the production of stress hormones, like adrenaline and cortisol, decrease. The slowdown also needs a certain time investment. “While there isn’t a magic combination of poses, doing yoga certainly falls into those parameters.” It’s gentle. It’s relaxing. And, most especially, it’s lying down, and “You can’t fall asleep standing up,” Khalsa says.

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