Borderline’s Partner: Some Enter Healthy, Exit Mentally Ill (Starts 12:10)

the borderline transforms all her partners even mentally healthy partners into narcissists when i say her is just for convenience sake about 50 of people with borderline personality disorder are men although i'm suggesting lately that men should be diagnosed with a variant of borderline personality disorder which i call covert borderline so i'm going to use her and she throughout the text it doesn't mean that i'm a misogynist it doesn't mean that i'm a sexist it doesn't mean that i don't know english although all three are pretty much correct it's simply for convenience sec and because of the fact that until very recently about 75 percent of people diagnosed with bpd were women anyhow coming back to the topic the borderline as i said transforms her intimate partners into narcissists this is known as late onset narcissism or acquired situational narcissism a term that was coined in the 80s by millman why how does she do this why does she do this what happens to her partners that they suddenly evolve transmogrify and transform into narcissists at least behaviorally emotionally what alchemical process takes place between the borderline and her partner this is the topic of today's video my name is salvaknin and i'm the author of malignant self-love narcissism revisited and i'm also a professor of psychology before i go there however before i start with the topic of the video i would like to respond to a series of emails and messages and carrier pigeons and what have you that i've received from various psychoanalysts around the world and when i say around the world i mean around the world they're everywhere they're in france they are in india they are even in south africa they're in chile they're in the united states they're in germany etc etc i received i received a river of complaints from psychoanalysts claiming that the dual mothership concept was developed by sigmund freud apparently he also invented sliced bread according to psychoanalyst wrong it's very wrong actually and it's a show of ignorance let me help you a bit my dear psychoanalyst freud distinguished uneclectic from narcissistic objects he was wrong because he assumed the existence of a self and that the narcissist possesses a conflicted self in other words the narcissist invests emotionally in his own self but both assumptions are probably wrong definitely the second one the narcissist doesn't have a self that's precisely the problem that's the core of narcissism so there is nothing to correct nothing to invest emotional energy in or as freud called it bizetsung there's no besetsum process possible with a self that doesn't exist so the distinction between anaclitic objects and narcissistic objects was wrong from the very beginning freud also equated the roles and importance of the mother and the father in the formation of anaclitic objects in later life wrong again only the mother counts only the mother is involved in the formation of anaclitic objects and processes later on in life as melanie klein mahler and numerous other piaget and i mean winnicott numerous others have proved uh much later and even uh even freud's own daughter unafraid so to sum up this part um and maybe i will dedicate a special video to this freud's view of the mother and the mother's role in adult bonding and attachment later on in life but to summarize this part and go to the topic of the video i would like to to read to you from from this it's the freud encyclopedia it's gigantic and extremely heavy as befits its topic and i don't know if it's if it can be captured in the camera it's the freud encyclopedia and it's published by rutledge a masterpiece an absolute masterpiece composed by dozens if not hundreds of scholars of freud psychoanalyses the antecedents of freud the schools after freud and so on it's a must it must be in every every psychologist library even if you don't adhere to psychoanalysis and i don't for example so let me read to you from the from the encyclopedia freud thus felt that children learn to feel for other people who help them in their helplessness and satisfy their needs love which is of the model of and a continuation of their relationships as sucklings to their nursing mother that is freud and this is the article about anaclytic objects hence according to the theory of an eclectic object choice a man will love a woman who feeds him and a woman we love a man who protects her the implication is that the man rediscovers a mother and the woman rediscovers a father wrong as i've just said that's absolutely wrong hence according to freud's from your formulation heterosexuality is an eclectic while whereas homosexuality is narcissistic a person chooses an object on the basis of some real or imagined similarity with himself when he is a homosexual the anacolletic object provides psychic nourishment and its loss can precipitate a depression and freuze for it describes this depression an eclectic depression i'm reading from the freud encyclopedia anacollectic depression has been further distinguished from introjective depression an eclectic depression causes one to feel helpless weak depleted to wish to be cared for loved fed protected and is accompanied by intense fears of abandonment oral cravings and an urgency to feel an inner emptiness introjective depression derives from a harsh punitive conscience resulting in feelings of inferiority worthlessness guilt and wish for atonement these two syndromes can coexist in an individual so this is this is um as far as the commentary by my would-be colleagues perhaps psychoanalysts all around the world it's wrong freud did not suggest a mothership a dual mothership concept he suggested a mother father collusion in the formative years which precondition the child when he becomes an adult to seek for substitutes mother substitute and father's attitude in the form of an ecliptic objects additionally freud was wrong and that is wrong that is simply wrong it's been utterly disproven over the decades second wrong assumption is that the narcissist has a self which he affects which he invests emotional energy in the narcissist has only internal objects some of these objects are self states but they are not integrated they are not coalesced there's no unitary self by the way not only narcissist there's no unitary self period the narcissist has itself states which are internal objects and he collects he invests emotional energy in all of them in all his internal objects whether they are so states or whether they are not some of the internal objects are uneclectic they are maternal objects for example when he comes across a potential intimate partner he takes a snapshot of her so to speak he internalizes and introjects here it creates an internal object which represents the intimate partner and this object becomes an analytic object of course the self-states are introjects in personality disorders there are two types of constancy that is building on jean-pierre's object permanence work so there are two types in personality disorder there is introject constancy and there is object constancy object constancy is an attachment to an external object even if the attachment is pathological it's there and there is a perception a clear perception of boundaries and separation from an internal from an external object that is object constancy in people with personality disorders for example borderline personality disorder there is object in constancy there is the inability to maintain a represent and internal representation of an external object on a permanent basis narcissists and others have introject in constancy they try desperately to maintain introject constancy whereas object constancy is an attachment to a discernibly separated external object introject constancy is an attachment to an internal object to an introject now of course when you are attached to your own internal space when you are one with your internal objects this creates rigidity this explains why personality disorders are rigid patterns in the language of the diagnostic and statistical manual because of introject constancy or because of introduced disturbance as in borderline personality disorder which then this causes panic and behavioral rigidity so we have we have two types of rigidity one type of rigidity is an attempt to freeze the internal mental space because of abandonment anxiety separation insecurity there's a need to freeze the introjects to freeze the internal objects to fossilize them to ossify them ossify them to fixate them it's like you know fixating butterflies and and so there's a need to kind of freeze the tableau to create a table of internal objects which will be there for forever hanging on the wall of the narcissist internal museum and this creates rigidity of course on the flip side of this coin the borderline cannot maintain object constancy she fails to create introjects that correspond to external objects and are stable so her behaviors are essentially rigid in the sense that she is expected to act out to aggress to decompensate and so on and so forth so there are two types of rigidity the borderline's object constancy is the reason that her partners even healthy partners become narcissists at least narcissist for a while i'll try to explain the borderline has a an overwhelming need for object constancy because she has abundant anxiety separation and security because she has dysregulation because her personality has very low level of organization it's chaotic disorganized etc etc for multiple reasons she needs to have constant objects in her life i call these objects the rocks she needs a rock around which she can construct her life in a manner which will allow her somehow to regulate her over overwhelming emotions she's terrified of her own internal processes and dynamics she needs help but she needs help from someone who is always there always accepting always forgiving always overlooking things turning a blind eye always supportive provides succor and a helping hand she needs a savior in other words she needs a fixer that's her constant object regrettably for her she can't create the the equivalent she can't create an internal object which is as stable as solid as only as always present as the external object so this creates in her something we call object in constancy even if the external object her intimate partner is always there for her her inability to maintain introject constancy renders the external object in constant you see constantly constancy requires an external object who is reliable predictable not capricious not arbitrary loving caring empathic and supportive that's the external object but it also requires the ability to create a representation of this person in your mind that is stable and solid and consistent and always there when you have these two external objects an internal object which corresponds and which are always there and which are solid and which are stable and which are predictable and reliable and helpful then you have object constancy the narcissist fails in his attempts to interact with external objects the narcissist has introduced constancy and object in constancy external inconstancy and internal constancy the borderline is the opposite she has introject in constancy which creates essentially a feeling of object in constancy both of them have object in constancy both of them because even the narcissist introject constancy is not enough he doesn't have the object the narcissist lacks the external object the borderline lacks the internal object so when a healthy person let alone a narcissist teams up with a borderline they become a romantic diet a couple a partnership of some kind the borderline has a problem with object constancy because she cannot generate internal objects introjects which are stable so her behavior pushes her partners to avoid her the borderline is too painful as an external object it hurts to be with a borderline it's excruciating it's a torture so even healthy people they begin to avoid the borderline as an external object as a real entity as a person as someone out there they begin to avoid her but they love her they want to be with her they don't want to lose her so what they do instead they develop an internal object in their mind and they begin to interact with this internal object the internal object is not hurtful is reliable is uh caring and loving is empathic doesn't act out doesn't decompensate he's not dangerous etc let me try to recap what i said until now again this is very complex material my heart goes out to you let me recap what i've said until now everyone needs object constancy you need to feel safe in people around you but to do this you need to have a stable object out there someone you can trust someone you can rely on out there someone who is predictable but you need also to have an internal representation and of this person in your mind and introject that you is also stable is also reliable it's also loving and caring and empathic and helpful and supportive and predictable so you need both you need the outside the external object and you need the internal of it the narcissist fails with the external object and succeeds with the internal the borderline fails with the internal and succeeds with the external both of them cannot get it right so they don't have object constancy consequently the borderline misbehaves she disintegrates she decompensates she approaches and she avoids she does crazy things acting out she i mean she is she is a tumult she is the perfect storm even when the not when the borderline's partner is perfectly healthy is not a narcissist he's going to begin to gradually shun her and avoid her because she's too much because she's too painful because she's destroying him mentally so he is beginning to avoid her as a as a prophylactic measure as a precaution preemptively is withdrawing even healthy partners of borderlines go through a process of avoidance and withdrawal when the full rather and energy negative energy of the borderline is unleashed upon them they just want to get away they just want to not be there they want to disappear somehow but they don't want to abandon the borderline for a variety of reasons the borderline pushes specific buttons in people even when they're healthy so they want to abandon the borderline so what they do instead even healthy people what they do instead they develop an internal objects object which represents the borderline and they continue to interact with this internal object does it remind you of anything yes the narcissist snapshot exactly it's a narcissistic dynamic it's exactly what happens to healthy partners of a borderline let alone to narcissist they develop a snapshot of the borderline and they continue to interact with this snapshot because interacting with the external object interacting with the real-life intimate partner who has borderline personality disorder interacting with the borderline requires what we call in psychology high effort coping high effort coping which is health threatens your health and your men i mean your physical health and your mental health so just to just as an attempted self-reservation the partners of borderline borderlines become temporarily transiently situationally narcissist in the sense that they start to interact with an internal object which represents the borderline partner rather than with the partner herself which is what narcissists do the borderline of course perceives because she's like a seismograph you know the borderline is hyper vigilant she constantly monitors for possible abundant or rejection she catastrophizes she over interprets she mislabels behaviors which are perfectly normal as abundant and rejection she is all over the place in this sense so she senses the withdrawal she grasps the silent creeping avoidance she realizes that her partner is beginning to shun her she knows that what she's doing is wrong she knows she's misbehaving she knows she's hurting him she knows she's introducing unmanageable chaos into their lives she knows she's crazy making but she just can't help it because she dysregulated she's sick borderline personality disorder is an illness she can't help it but she knows it is having deleterious effects on the relationship she knows she's driving her partner away into his mind away from her and into his mind she realizes that he is interacting with some with some image of her with some avatar of her with some icon of her with some representation of her which is not her so she feels abundant she feels rejected and when borderlines feel abandoned and rejected they decompensate their defenses crumble they become secondary psychopaths and they act out viciously aggressively or they do immoral things or they act recklessly this is the dynamic the unhealthy dynamic between the borderline and each and every one of her partners aware of this inevitable dynamic and craving to keep her partner in her life in other words in a desperate attempt forlorn and doomed attempt to ensure object constancy the borderline needs to freeze the partner to to avoid any change in any dynamic in the partner she needs a partner to become an in an ancient egyptian mummy exactly like the narcissist but for different reasons the narcissist freezes his partner because he needs to emotionally because he is emotionally invested in the introject and he doesn't want the partner to diverge from the introject because he challenges the introject the borderline wants to freeze her partner wants him to not evolve not grow up not travel not talk to other people not have friends never ever to pay attention to anyone but her and to pay attention to her 60 minutes a day 24 7 366 or 380 if possible she she's all over him she's she suffocates him she smothers him because she doesn't want him to go away even to the next room it's exactly like a baby with mother you know when mother leaves the room baby starts to cry that's the borderline she tries to freeze the park but this desperate attempt to deny the partner agency to reduce the partner to an inert object to objectify the park this strategy of rendering the partner some kind of toy or plaything in a way or at best a source of permanent presence and and um the core attention that she needs this provokes the part people don't want to be treated this way they don't want to be deactivated they don't want to end up being objects they don't want to lose agency and control over their lives they don't want to be subjected to emotional blackmail they don't want to walk on actions they don't want to conflict on adversity in their lives on a permanent basis they feel engulfed they feel so this generates in the partner engulfment anxiety as you see being in a couple with with a borderline even if you're perfectly healthy generates in you as the as the partner of the borderline generating you and narcissistic dynamic you start to interact with internal objects rather than an external object and generating you a borderline dynamic because you develop exactly like the borderline you develop an engulfment anxiety and you start to avoid the borderline you avoid her because she's painful and unpredictable and dangerous so you avoid her by developing an internal object which represents her in my in your mind and interacting with this object but then you begin to avoid her altogether even sometimes internally because she demands of you to cease living to not live anymore she demands of you to become inanimate she wants you to become a fixture in her mind and in her life so borderlines react very badly if you spend too much time with someone else or if you if you cater to some business needs or if you don't pay them attention for too long or if you don't respond instantly to any communication that they initiate never mind when and where because you you don't have agency you are not your own person you are you are an external object but she owns you the borderline owns you you are her property in many ways you are an external regulator it's like a a transformer in electricity you're an external regulator your job is to regulate her moods and her emotions and make her feel good that's your job that's your result that's your reason to exist this is what you need to do in order to justify your being and so partners gradually draw away they're pushed away and they react with narcissistic defenses like for example interjection and introject constancy and they react with borderline defenses like for example decompensation avoidant behaviors approach avoidance and they develop gradually anxiety both about the external object and about the internal object introject anxiety so they don't know what to do the partners of borderlines they absolutely don't know what to do they also have their own needs for object constancy in other words they also need to maintain a constant object out there and a constant introject corresponding to this object in here by avoiding the external object even healthy partners of borderlines are undermining their own object constancy they're driven clinically to become personality disordered and this whole dynamic which is pretty inexorable provokes the borderline's abandonment anxiety so the whole the approach avoidance cycle where the borderline approaches you you respond favorably intimacy is created the borderline is terrified of abandonment and rejection by you but at the same same time she feels that she's taken over by you that she's subsumed and consumed by you she has engulfment anxiety so she withdraws and then she feels abandoned and anxious about it and she approaches all this is reciprocated and mirrored in the dynamics of the partner as the borderline goes through her own vicissitudes and tribulations first experiencing intimacy then terrified of losing this intimacy and external regulation and so she approaches then terrified of the approach and of being engulfed in in enmeshed and consumed by the partner so she avoids then she's terrified of one abandonment having avoided the partner and she approaches this is her own internal dynamic she can't help it approach avoidance repetition compulsion is an integral part of borderline i i hate you don't leave me but this provokes a mirror image in dynamical psychodynamical terms a mirror image in the partner the partner at first is hurt perplexed befuddled totally disoriented in enormous pain and agony because of the borderline's approach avoidance he can't understand can make sense of it and he can tolerate it so he starts to avoid the borderline as an external object avoidance behaviors which are typical typical to the borderline become his sort of he caught it by way of contagion he was infected somehow so he becomes avoidant as well she is avoidant when she feels engulfed he becomes avoided because if he is rejected or humiliated or abandoned so he becomes avoidant with the external object but he's still very much attached to the internal object representing his borderline partner but then the borderline partners behaviors especially her insistence to freeze the intimate partner to prevent any change of dynamic any growth any development and any happiness basically this challenges even the internal object even the introject so this creates introject inconstancy this is totally narcissistic dynamic the partner becomes clinically a narcissist while he is with a borderline he doesn't recognize himself anymore he's in a state of shock at the things he does and says he regrets he feels shame and guilt which is also essentially a borderline dynamic and this drives him further away because who wants to experience shame and guilt all the time he feels blackmailed on the one hand and he feels inadequate on the other a classic compensatory narcissistic dynamic so this the borderline induces in the partner major elements of narcissistic disturbance and major behaviors of borderline including avoidance and the partner response the partners who are more aware more sophisticated more intelligent they're trying their best they try to secure the borderline's object constancy so at first they avoid because the borderline is painful and hurtful and aggressive and unpleasant and demanding and challenging so they avoid but then the internal object is still there they miss the borderline they love the borderline they want to help her they want to restore object constancy so they approach what is this avoidance approach avoidance approach freud was the first to describe this by the way actually he wasn't the first adler was the first but he he enlarged upon it considerably so the partner avoids and approaches the borderline approaches and avoids again a mirror image a total borderline dynamic when you are with a borderline her dynamics will prevail her behaviors will take over her internal world will infect your internal world you will have become a narcissist in a borderline simultaneously for a while for a while walking away from the borderline usually restores health mental health but this approach avoidance repetition compulsion rules both parties in the borderline's romantic relationships even when the borderline's partner came into the diet came into the couple totally grounded totally centered totally healthy no personality disorder no mental health problems when he exits the relationships he has strong narcissistic defenses he has a narcissist's way of relating to reality via introjects via internal objects and he has marked approach avoidance behaviors borderline is as contagious as narcissism

Channel: Prof. Sam Vaknin

Views: 60,170

Keywords: narcissist, borderline, mortification, shock, shame, guilt, fear, personality, splitting, needs, cheating, intimate partner, relationships, anxiety, empathy, healing, trauma, self awareness, false self, true self, grandiosity, morals, parentify, shared fantasy, dead mother, rescuer, second chance, savior, fixer, approach, avoidance, repetition compulsion, abandonment, separation, engulfment, insecurity, narcissistic, defenses, introject, constancy, object, anaclitic, love, depression, introjective, freud

Id: 16x7bvr85u8

Length: 34min 57sec (2097 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 06 2022