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« on: March 08, 2007, 09:09:45 AM » |
It strikes me that the borderliners in our lives have so much negative behaviour in common.
A
couple of weeks ago I came to a conclusion that most of that behaviour
is due to a single defense mechanism with lots of faces: Dissociation. I
have been reading about dissociation ever since.
Common behaviour:
- Daydreaming, fasing out = dissociation
- depersonalised sex = dissociation
- "Black and White" thinking = dissociation
- Self mutilation, cutting = dissociation
- Remembering things differently than others do, lying = dissociation
- Raging = dissociation
We
all have our occasional dissociation in the form of daydreaming,
meditation, dancing on music until we get in a trance state... But I
believe BPD's do it quite often without having control over it as we do;
and their dissociation does not limit itself to occasional daydreaming;
it has a lot of different faces.
If the feelings of the BPD do
not match the situation or reality, the BPD will alter the
situation/reality to the point it does match. They do this because they
do not want to be confronted with their out-of-place feelings.
PS: This is a personal conclusion. Maybe I see a pattern that is incorrect. Please feel free to comment.
Wikipedia:
Dissociation
is a psychological state or condition in which certain thoughts,
emotions, sensations, or memories are separated from the rest of the
psyche. For this reason, it is sometimes referred to as "splitting."
French psychiatrist Pierre Janet:
The
French psychiatrist Pierre Janet (1859-1947) coined the term in his
book L'Automatisme psychologique; he emphasized its role as a defensive
maneuver in response to psychological trauma. While he considered
dissociation an initially effective defence mechanism that withdraws the
individual psychologically from the impact of overwhelming traumatic
events, a habitual tendency to dissociate would, however, promote
psychopathology.
The American Psychiatric Association:
The
American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of
Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition considers symptoms such as
depersonalization, derealization, and psychogenic amnesia to be core
features of dissociative disorders. However, in the normal population
mild dissociative experiences are highly prevalent, with 80% to 90% of
the respondents indicating that they have had dissociative experiences
at least some of the time. [citation needed]
Dr. Richard Moskovitz
What is the difference between BPD and the spectrum of dissociative disorders?
In
normal consciousness, we experience an exquisite and seamless
integration of a variety of neurological functions. We are perceiving
input via all five of our senses and integrating these perceptions into a
meaningful picture of reality. Current experience is also influenced by
memory traces from the past that are automatically called into
awareness according to their relevance to the present. New memory traces
are constantly being created and stored. And we must remember that we
are not merely passive recorders of our environment but interact with it
via our various motor functions, altering both our surroundings and our
perceptions of them. Finally, to distinguish us from the computer on
which I record this message, we experience emotions, which further color
and individualize the content of consciousness.
Dissociation
describes any conditions in which one or more of these functions fail to
integrate and are split off or dissociated from the mainstream of
experience. The dissociated piece may be a small fragment of a function,
for example a specific memory of a single event in time, or it may be
of more sweeping consequence, such as amnesia for the essential elements
of one's identity.
Dissociation may affect memory creation or
retrieval, any aspect of sensory input and interpretation, the capacity
to execute motor functions such as movement or speech, and the emotional
coloring of experience. The cognitive and emotional aspects of
experience can be separated in more than one way. The perception of
one's surroundings may be robbed of all emotional tone as in
depersonalization. On the other hand, emotion can so dominate
consciousness that it blots out current reality as might occur in the
flashbacks that occur in Post-traumatic Stress Disorder.
Most of
the dissociative disorders that have been defined are well-circumscribed
in scope and may, in turn, originate with a single intense or traumatic
emotional experience. There may be amnesia covering a specific event or
period of time. There may be a discrete alteration of sensory input,
such as tunnel vision or even an episode of psychogenic blindness (often
interpreted as an unconscious unwillingness to view something painful).
Motor functions may be affected as in the paralysis of a limb or an
inability to speak (which may be understood as unconscious recognition
that something is unspeakable). Such alterations of sensory or motor
functions that are not based upon physical diseases characterize the
conversion disorders along with pseudo seizures and other non-organic
neurological dysfunctions. There may even be apparent alterations of the
individual's usual cognitive abilities.
Any of the dissociative
symptoms may occur in BPD. Dissociative experiences are a hallmark of
BPD. They are generally more varied, more complex, and often more
persistent than the single symptoms that characterize many dissociative
disorders. All people with BPD dissociate. Only some people who
dissociate have BPD.
At the other end of the complexity spectrum is
Dissociative Identity Disorder. In Chapter 4 of Lost in the Mirror, I
compared multiple personalities to the channels of a radio or
television. With this model, the tuner would be governed by current
circumstances and emotions, determining which personality would be tuned
in at any given time.
About BPD and depersonalisation and dissociation:
http://www.aapel.org/bdp/BLdissoUS.html
About BPD and lying, remembering facts different than others:
http://www.aapel.org/bdp/BLlieUS.html
About BPD and "black and white thinking"
http://www.aapel.org/bdp/BLsplittingUS.html
