Defense Mechanisms

I am sitting in Panara this morning like I do most Sat. mornings. It's a routine I find helpful. I tend to get more done when I get here and have coffee. This morning I am reading for my one class this semester. I am reading about Borderline personality disorder. It is absolutely fascinating. I know it's the disorder that is most difficult to work with and that borderline clients take a ton of energy and effort (so they say) but I still think I would like a chance at it. I have pondered off and on learning more about dialectic behavior therapy because it it one of the few therapies which is supposed to work well with borderline clients. It's a complicated therapy as far as I can tell. Multi-layered and involving more than just one therapist. Of course anything that is multi-layered tends to be attractive to me as well so there's another reason for beginning curiosity in working with this type of client.

One of the things (amongst many) that caught my attention while reading this morning is that borderline clients tend to use idealization and devaluation among their psychological defense mechanisms. [see explanation here]

Everyone has used a defense mechanism. We need them to self-protect and cope. I do not believe them to be inherently pathological. At one point there was a very good reason for developing one. I am intrigued with idealization and devaluation of others as a defense mechanism because the easiest way for me to see it is in the context of attachment theory. Babies are biologically predisposed to idealized their care giver. They have to for survival. But if that care giver harms or overloads them, they also need to split that "bad" care giver away. Which can look like devaluation. How painful it must be to have to hold both idealization and devaluation of your source of food and shelter inside you. It makes me take pause. We all have some level of idealizing and devaluing people in our life. Today my reading just makes me ponder those I idealize and devalue and desire to take a closer look at it.