The Life-World of Persons with Borderline Personality Disorder

Persons with borderline personality disorder are often described as affected by extreme emotional fluctuations. This article analyses their fundamental emotions: dysphoria and anger, despair, boredom, shame, and guilt. Our focus will be mainly on the two distinct life-world configurations that originate from dysphoria and anger: the dysphoric life-world and the life-world of anger. The first is characterized by a quasi-ineffable constellation of feelings in which Self and Others are irritatingly indefinite. In the second, the vague sense of Self and Others disappear: the Self is the victim, the Other the Offender. This emotional intensity does not allow borderline persons to distance themselves from what they feel here-and-now, thus feelings and values overlap. We call this “frustrated normativity.” Borderline persons are guided by the value of authenticity thus entering into collision with the social norms/conventions which they consider inauthentic and therefore an unwarranted challenge to their truly natural being: spontaneity.