A Phenomenological Approach to Borderline Personality Disorder.
From the perspective of phenomenology, borderline personality disorder (BPD) is the description of the way of living in the world characterized by relational hunger, identity confusion, and emotional chaos. Rogers’ person-centered theory makes us sensitized to the very compassionate idea that the self is not, strictly speaking, disordered but, instead, wounded by an environment that failed to grant it authenticity (R. Rogers, 1959).
The Structure of Personality
The borderline self is fragmented not by pathology, but, instead, by conditional regard. When caregivers respond with invalidation or coercion, the child internalizes that their true self is unacceptable. The personality structure that results, therefore, is built on constructs of shame, self-alienation, and chronic emotional vulnerability (Rogers, 1959; Patterson & Joseph, 2007).
The Process of Personality
The borderline individual walks a life that is, as if, fogged by emotional dysregulation and relational instability. Their actualizing tendency, the innate drive toward growth and integration, is thwarted by internalized conditions of worth. Patterson and Joseph (2007) sustain that when autonomy, competence, and relatedness are all denied, the self fractures.
About the Growth of Personality and the Therapeutic Change
Healing, in that sense, occurs by the very act of empathic attunement. The therapist offers empathic deep listening, congruence, and unconditional positive regard. The client, in turn, begins to rediscover a voice and a faith in their own experience, becoming increasingly integrated. Conversion, thus, happens not by imposition, but naturally as the self orients itself to regain that lost wholeness (Cervone & Pervin, 2023).
References
Cervone, D., & Pervin, L. A. (2023). Personality: Theory and research (15th ed.). Wiley.
Patterson, T., & Joseph, S. (2007). Person-centered personality theory: Support from self-determination theory and positive psychology. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 47(1), 117–139. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022167806293008
Rogers, C. R. (1959). A theory of therapy, personality, and interpersonal relationships as developed in the client-centered framework. In S. Koch (Ed.), Psychology: A study of a science (Vol. 3, pp. 184–256). McGraw-Hill.
The Unquiet Attachment 