The Narcissist versus the Borderline

Functional (F) and Structural (S) Domains

(F) Interpersonally Paradoxical (e.g., although needing attention and affection, is unpredictably contrary, manipulative and volatile, frequently eliciting rejection rather than support; frantically reacts to fears of abandonment and isolation, but often in angry, mercurial, and self-damaging ways).

(F) Fluctuating Cognitive Style (e.g., experiences rapidly changing, fluctuating and antithetical perceptions or thoughts concerning passing events, as well as contrasting emotions and conflicting thoughts toward self and others, notably love, rage, and guilt; vacillating and contradictory reactions are evoked in others by virtue of one’s behaviors, creating, in turn, conflicting and confusing social feedback).

(S) Uncertain Self-Image (e.g., experiences the confusions of an immature, nebulous or wavering sense of identity, often with underlying feelings of emptiness; seeks to redeem precipitate actions and changing self-presentations with expressions of contrition and self-punitive behaviors).

(S) Incompatible Object-Relations ( e.g., internalized representations comprise rudimentary and extemporaneously devised, but repetitively aborted learnings, resulting in conflicting memories, discordant attitudes, contradictory needs, antithetical emotions, erratic impulses, and clashing strategies for conflict reduction).

(F) Regression Regulatory Mechanism (e.g., retreats under stress to developmentally earlier levels of anxiety tolerance, impulse control and social adaptation; among adolescents, is unable to cope with adult demands and conflicts, as evident in immature, if not increasingly infantile behaviors).

(S) Split Morphologic Organization (e.g., inner structures exist in a sharply segmented and conflictful configuration in which a marked lack of consistency and congruency is seen among elements, levels of consciousness often shift and result in rapid movements across boundaries that usually separate contrasting percepts, memories, and affects, all of which leads to periodic schisms in what limited psychic order and cohesion may otherwise be present, often resulting in transient, stress-related psychotic episodes).

(S) Labile Mood-Temperament (e.g., fails to accord unstable mood level with external reality; has either marked shifts from normality to depression to excitement, or has periods of dejection and apathy, interspersed with episodes of inappropriate and intense anger, as well as brief spells of anxiety or euphoria).