Psychopathology: Theory and Practice

Borderline Personality Disorder a disordered relationship with self, other and the body, arising from neurobiological or relational deficits and psychodynamic defenses: A Relational Affective Hypothesis

Dr. Mizen presents her theory of a neurobiological and developmental pathway for symbolization and its failures in those with borderline presentations.

Her ‘Relational Affective Hypothesis’ describes how neurobiological mechanisms promote mother infant interaction launching a developmental process through which the ability to symbolize emerges. Triangulation, which is key to developing the capacity to symbolize, may fail through relational or the psychodynamic defense mechanism of projective identification leading to a concrete emotional world and a disordered sense of physical and psychological identity.

The result is the emergence of two conflicted states of mind and patterns of interpersonal relating which give rise to the affective instability and impulsiveness of people with a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder and a disordered sense of what belongs to whom.