BPD Relationship Problem: You Don't Exist If I Can't See You (Out of Sight, Out of Love)

hi it's Dr Fox licensed psychologist in the state of Texas and in this video we're going to talk about BPD relationships specifically you don't exist if I can't see you so we're going to discuss emotional permanence which is the feelings of Abandonment rejection and emptiness that you feel when someone you love and Trust cannot be physically present or immediately contacted I will go over five techniques I use with my clients to overcome this issue and build a healthy secure and trusting relationship so please like share and subscribe and comment too and let's get into it many individuals with BPD have a difficulty emotionally understanding that an object or person you love and Trust exists when they cannot see them or talk to them now this is related to an impairment in development to attain object constancy which is a cognitive skill we typically acquire at or around two to three years old it is the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen touched or contacted in some way these objects are called your trusted objects and often include boyfriend girlfriend spouse parent friend therapist and whomever isn't really important to you in your interpersonal Circle for those with BPD it's called a lack of emotional permanence this is because it relates to the emotional despair you feel when that trusted object is not visible or cannot be reached immediately the lack of emotional permanence also causes you to be unable to see people as whole and constant and it becomes difficult to feel or remember the sense of the presence of the loved one when they are not physically present this can lead to such powerful and overwhelming feelings of Abandonment and rejection and it evokes this raw extreme and sometimes childlike reactions when these abandonment and rejection fears are triggered shame and blame closely follow further destabilizing your emotions and the core content right that I talk about if you see my other videos you know I talk about core content and surface content and the core content of these strong reactions are always conscious and it feels as though you're being resistant petulant and immature if you consider what it was like for you at two years old to be left alone or be with an inconsistent caregiver which you may have experienced the intense fear rage and despair would all make sense it all makes sense as adults we have to see through the adult lens and push back on our BPD lens that causes all this Distortion now if you want to know more about BPD lens I talk about it in my BPD workbook and I talk about it within the context of treatment and managing a lot of the symptoms that we're talking about and issues that we're talking about in this video now this impaired ability to know that someone still exists even though you cannot see or talk to them manifests in individuals with BPD as fear of Abandonment rejection and emptiness though no concrete evidence is present to support this for example you get this feeling of aloneness and you try to contact your trusted other but you cannot get through or you feel the spontaneous sense of fear loss abandonment rejection and emptiness it is this unfounded intense internalized fear that you've been abandoned and rejected and this causes you to feel empty inside and you haven't been told that the high value person or object is leaving you wants nothing to do with you or anything of the sort but the spiral has already begun the anchor has been placed around your leg pulling you underwater this is when you've got to start swimming using your strategies and not giving in to the fear self-contempt and maladaptive patterns research and clinical Studies have shown that this failure to develop emotional permanence comes from your early development such as parenting style or traumatic experiences or both the most common circumstances are that you experience situations that were filled with emotional physical and or sexual abuse leading to feelings of Abandonment rejection neglect and emptiness these painful childhood experiences left you untrusting as well as vulnerable to re-experiencing those childhood feelings and issues that played out time and time again in your adult relationships so you're constantly it's like watching the same movie and having the same experience over and over and over again now when you encounter instances where you believe your trusted object has abandoned or rejected you you experience intense stress of Separation fueled by old thoughts feelings and memories that taught you that you can never count on a secure trusting and soothing object to help you this is a split and it's a tactic that keeps you locked into your BPD problems and issues your fear no longer reflects your reality your fear reflects your past in many ways you're Tethered to your past by these beliefs by these perceptions now the lack of emotional permanence helps explain why you psychologically start to regress go back to those old maladaptive patterns when your trusted object of boyfriend girlfriend spouse parent friend therapist or whomever is in an interpersonal Circle that high valued object is not readily available however there are things you can do with your trust object to help build this sense of object constancy and emotional permanence I'm going to put this in the framework of what I do with my clients but you can do this with your partner your parent or your child too so whatever works for you let's try it out first have regular and frequent appointments a couple times per week one time a week is often not enough and this is for individuals that are along the BPD Spectrum one time a week is usually not enough particularly when when you start a lot of the research shows about three times is tends to be the average and that is because these maladaptive patterns are still so powerful and keep pushing in and the individual often needs to have that trusted object not only to build the trust through through continuous and scheduled contacts but also that their serve as reminders they serve as positive reinforcement so for a lot of these adaptive strategies that you're going over in therapy that your therapist is teaching you or that you are teaching your partner your parent or your child as well next one use transitional objects these are physical pictures books stuffed animals an object brought to session by a client or could be a physical business card as well can be used as a bridge to the availability of a memory that calls to mind memories moods feelings or images of that individual so for example if you feel unsafe or something gets triggered so that emotional permanence right has been activated you can then look at that person's business card and say okay you know what I'm still connected to Dr Fox or it could be something from my office perhaps that maybe I gave you and you use that and you're like okay I'm still connected to Dr Fox I know he's still there and that's what's also great about the YouTube channel you can always pull me up on YouTube me like look there he is and he's super cool I don't know you can say the last part if you want but you don't have to so the next one this is directly answering questions about where the therapist will be on holidays and or about personal information if the questions are not overly intrusive and this is based upon the Comfort level of the individual of the other individual which could be your therapist could also be you know someone who you trust or someone whom you're close with so we want to make sure that they're comfortable as well next you want to use a physical or electronic journal to communicate thoughts and feelings to the therapist in his or her absence it's important to get that out and I think that it's important to get that out and be able to process that without that individual being there and I know that this is difficult for a lot of my clients as well but it's pushing back on that lack of emotional permanence and you're pushing back on those things and you're building that sense of emotional permanence and you're helping to build it in yourself and it builds this sense of confidence it builds this sense of trust believe it or not with that other individual it will help you feel closer to them and the last one number five using and developing guided fantasies or images such as asking the client to visualize the therapist's face or sitting beside the therapist or imagining soothing comforting times with the therapist or some other significant person in the client's life if they're available and you can do this with with your kid or your partner or whomever by talking about Memories by perhaps looking at pictures of memories or experiences that that you have with this individual that was positive I will often encourage some of my clients to develop slideshows and put their favorite music with that slideshow about an experience they had with a significant other if we're working on relationship issues and object permanence is obviously an issue so that they can look at that and they connect it with that song Maybe play that song when you're with that person it builds that greater connection to that song but it also enhances and generalizes that sense of connection and that that's exactly what what we're trying to do so developing emotional permanence is not easy there's no pill for it it is a complex issue but so important to development Beyond BPD and to do it differently and have secure relationships with not only trusted others but with yourself as well so leave me feedback about this video and how you have developed emotional permanence in your world because I know that helps other folks who watch my videos as well because many of them do read the comments and they get a lot from them so please like share and subscribe comment too and thank you very much and I'll see you next time take care and bye bye

Channel: Dr. Daniel Fox

Views: 55,668

Keywords: object permanence bpd, bpd relationships, dr fox bpd relationships, dr fox workbooks, dr fox bpd, dr fox favorite person, dr fox bpd relationship, bpd, bpd relationships breakups, relationship advice, bpd relationship, identity disturbance, how to get over a breakup, bpd relationship cycle, dating advice, affective instability, personality disorders and affective dysregulation, bpd relationship advice, bpd relationship problem, bpd relationship problems

Id: sGhD6Cc78Bk

Length: 11min 23sec (683 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 18 2023