Splitting (psychology)
Proneness to rejection hypersensitivity; problems in establishing and maintaining consistent and appropriate levels of trust in interpersonal relationships; frequent misinterpretation of social signals contribute greatly to a subject with BPD's ability to find supporting "evidence" for their devaluation process.
Often then the splitting process becomes behavioural and the subject will often abruptly lash out or cut contact with the person that they devalued causing a great deal of inner group conflict and distress.
In order to prevent perceived judgement from others, the subject will often engage in a stage of justification of their actions by convincing those around them of the validity of their claims that the devalued party is entirely bad and that they are purely a victim.
[16] With people with Cluster B personality disorders, this often involves the embellishment or invention of grievances that garner an emotional response from those around them that they feel matches their own distress at the situation.
[10] For the loved ones of those with BPD there are several seemingly contradictory factors to balance: The New England Personality Disorder Association recommends always involving the wider group in the discussion of issues, not responding to or ignoring threats or accusations (even if untrue) in the moment then discussing the episode in an open and realistic manner when the subject has calmed, and never protecting the subject from social or legal consequences of their actions.
Examples provided by Gunderson and Berkowitz[19] are: Although BPD was thought to be untreatable in the past, many new forms of therapy have been studied, practiced, and have been shown to help in the management and treatment of this disorder.
This type of therapy proposes that those with BPD can more effectively manage their interactions with others by acquiring skills that better help them deal with stress, regulate emotions, and have quality relationships.
Their interpersonal dynamic is brought out during therapy and later studied to resolve what the good and bad splits may affect an individuals personal lives.
General management normally does not involve more than one weekly session and has a goal to improve functionality by putting an individual in their everyday lives with the expectation that they will work on their coping by themselves.
This, along with similar oscillations in the experience and appraisal of the self, leads to chaotic and unstable relationship patterns, identity diffusion, and mood swings.
[25] There are also self-help books on related topics such as mindfulness and emotional regulation that claim to be helpful for individuals who struggle with the consequences of splitting.
Individuals have expressed the need to consistently validate and make sure their partner is understood due to their struggles with interpersonal identity and lack of self-worth.
[24] One of the DSM IV-TR criteria for this disorder is a description of splitting: "a pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation".
Additionally, they often have "domineering, intrusive, and vindictive styles of relating to others correlated with perpetrating psychological aggression", thus reducing their ability to resolve conflicts amicably.
Splitting may cause individuals to believe that they will be abused if they put trust in someone which can result in a simplistic view of how other people think and act.
[32] The main components of narcissistic personality disorder includes an extreme sensitivity to criticism due to their "do no wrong" ideas of self, developing a sense of entitlement compared to those around them, issues within their relationship lives, feeling like they are unique and different, a developed need to be admired by those around them, a lack of empathy, and a lack of impulse and anger control.
Splitting in schizophrenia is likely related to a decrease in amygdala activity and a lack of control of the prefrontal cortex which may reflect an inability to express feelings and emotions.
[7] In depression, exaggerated all-or-nothing thinking can form a self-reinforcing cycle: these thoughts might be called emotional amplifiers because, as they go around and around, they become more intense.
[43] With the development of the idea of repression, splitting moved to the background of Freud's thought for some years, being largely reserved for cases of double personality.
[44] However, his late work saw a renewed interest in how it was "possible for the ego to avoid a rupture... by effecting a cleavage or division of itself",[45] a theme which was extended in his Outline of Psycho-Analysis (1940a [1938]) beyond fetishism to the neurotic in general.
At what Klein called the paranoid-schizoid position, there is a stark separation of the things the child loves (good, gratifying objects) and the things the child hates (bad, frustrating objects), "because everything is polarised into extremes of love and hate, just like what the baby seems to experience and young children are still very close to".
As the child learns that people and objects can be good and bad at the same time, he or she progresses to the next phase, the depressive position, which "entails a steady, though painful, approximation towards the reality of oneself and others":[56] integrating the splits and "being able to balance [them] out ... are tasks that continue into early childhood and indeed are never completely finished".
Kernberg distinguishes three different stages in the development of a child with respect to splitting: If a person fails to accomplish this developmental task satisfactorily, borderline pathology can emerge.
[66] His therapeutic work then aimed at "the analysis of the repeated and oscillating projections of unwanted self and object representations onto the therapist" so as to produce "something more durable, complex and encompassing than the initial, split-off and polarized state of affairs".
[68] Traditional psychoanalysis saw repression as forming a horizontal barrier between different levels of the mind – so that for example an unpleasant truth might be accepted superficially but denied in a deeper part of the psyche.
It is commonly expressed where a behavioral therapist purposefully draws out specific feelings or triggers to allow an individual to work through their emotions.
Though, if they do understand, the process can positive because the individual can begin practicing ways to cope with the emotions, defenses, or fantasies they have created and projected onto others.
