Whose Eggshells?

[David Baxter PhD]

Whose Eggshells?
BorderlinePhD Blog
Monday, August 23, 2010

I've written so many different descriptions of Girl in Need of a Tourniquet as I prepared the manuscript and worked on publicity for the book. I just ran across one that might be useful in sparking conversation about the dynamics between borderlines and our partners or familial attachment figures:

My mission in this memoir is to convey the strangeness and intensity of borderline personality while at the same time retracing the flawless - if dysfunctional - logic of borderline cognition. The borderline doesn't like walking on eggshells any more than her partner or family members do. She would never have intentionally strewn them on the floor. She often thinks you (her partner, her mother) put them there! You may both be putting sharp broken things in the path of your relationship without meaning to, without knowing you're doing it. ​

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This description isn't meant to shift blame from the borderline to the partner, but rather to foreground the fact that the touchiness captured so well by the image of walking on eggshells is produced by an interpersonal dynamic, not from the borderline in a vacuum, and, most importantly, that this interpersonal dynamic can be reconfigured through the acquisition of improved skills in communication and emotion regulation. This is a commonplace view in imago therapy and family systems therapy, but it rarely comes up in conversations about borderlines.

Within two months of weekly therapy sessions with a couples counselor who uses imago therapy strategies, my partner and I saw dramatic improvement in our relationship, and we still use the concepts, language, and tactics we learned there on a daily basis.

Plus we listen to a lot of Pema Chodron.


Just sayin' . . .

 

[healthbound]

I don't know what imago therapy is, but I do like what the author of the blog wrote:

"...but rather to foreground the fact that the touchiness captured so well by the image of walking on eggshells is produced by an interpersonal dynamic, not from the borderline in a vacuum, and, most importantly, that this interpersonal dynamic can be reconfigured through the acquisition of improved skills in communication and emotion regulation."

There's no doubt living with borderline (either as one or with one) can be extremely challenging. But whenever there is more than one person involved in an intense relationship, it is usually a dance that both parties are actively participating in. It might not be equal participation, but it's participation. And that means both can participate in different ways to get different (or less intense) outcomes

 

[David Baxter PhD]

I don't know what imago therapy is

It's a variation on couples therapy devised by Harville Hendrix, author of Getting The Love You Want: A Guide For Couples and several related books.

See:

• Couples Therapy and Workshops from Imago Relationships Intnl (dead link)
• Imago Therapy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[healthbound]

Ah yes....Getting The Love you Want...The good ol' eighties.

I did a brief scan of the links you provided. Some of it makes a lot of sense to me. Like, many of us choosing partners that help create similar dynamics from our past so we can somehow work through them. But what if you're like me and have chosen NO relationships , lol? I don't want to pick anymore people from my past. Guess I just stick to cognitive or dbt therapy.

 

[David Baxter PhD]

I think the concepts of "the unconscious marriage" (entering relationships without a clear identification of what you want, need, and expect; felling that you're not getting what you should; leaving the relationship; entering into another one, still with no clear knowledge of what you want, need, and expect; rinse and repeat) and "the conscious marriage" (being clear about what you want. need, and expect from a relationship before committing to it) are both important contributions.

I find the rest of the book annoying, frankly. There are some glaring logical flaws which lead Hendrix to conclude that what people seek are partners who possess the nagative traits of their parents. That conclusion is utterly absurd, in my opinion, and based on bad data and bad logic.

Then his concept of the relationship vision or image, a pretty simple or basic idea, is transformed into "Imago" which just means... wait for it... vision or image, the sole purpose of which seems to be able to sell books, training programs, and relationship counselling franchises.

I don't recommend the book and there's nothing special about Imago Therapy as opposed to any other form of couples therapy. But you have to admire the guy's marketing skills, I guess.

 

[healthbound]

Hahaha...yes, it does seem he is very good at marketing. I remembered the book and its era as well as the general concept even though it was a couple decades ago when the book came out. And it sounds like Hendrix is still goin' strong.

But maybe becoming a bit more conscious of what I'd like in a relationship would help me get more comfortable with the idea of one.

But then again, maybe not.

I feel like I need to start even further back then that. Like...maybe asking myself why I'm not in one at all, lol. Apart from the conscious decisions I made to focus on raising my son, maintaining my health and continuing to work, I'm not entirely sure why I haven't made more of an effort to create a relationship. Anyway, now I'm just hijacking the thread - Interesting to think about tho.