| Self-defeating/self-destructive behavior manifested by borderline patients has been routinely observed by practitioners, who have, following Freud, referred to these tendencies as masochistic. However, there have been no clear answers pertaining either to its seemingly contradictory inner logic or to its apparently ubiquitous character. The aim of the present research was to contribute to the clarification of these issues by attaining an understanding of the lived meaning of self-defeating/self-destructive behavior manifested by borderline patients.; Individuals who had been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, who participated in a stable, outpatient psychotherapeutic relationship, and who possessed a fair degree of insight into their self-defeating/self-destructive behavior were seen as viable research subjects. Three such subjects were interviewed (twice) by the researcher. An empirical-phenomenological method of data analysis was used to analyze the transcribed material from these interviews. Existential and psychoanalytic theory formed the hermeneutic background for the primarily descriptive phenomenological investigation.; The results of this research indicated that self-defeating/self-destructive behavior reflects tendencies which are characteristic of a central dilemma for persons described as borderline. Instead of a coherent sense of identity a borderline patient presents an idealized, magical, and highly vulnerable self that organizes and distorts his/her experience of him/her self, the world, and others. As a defense, it tends to obliterate a more authentic self-experience. The contradiction in so-called borderline masochism is that, to succeed fully in building this defensive self-structure would mean an ultimate regression into omnipotent fantasies and an abandonment of authentic, real-world self-experience. Self-defeating/self-destructive behavior reflects the birth of a more authentic and individuated self, however distressed it may be.; The results of this research were considered in the light of psychoanalytic, Jungian and existential-phenomenological conceptions. Points of resemblance between the behavior of a borderline patient who is acting in a self-defeating/self-destructive manner and the behavior of a "moral" masochist, as well as their essential differences, were discussed. Implications for psychotherapy and further research were addressed. |
