Seeing is Believing: The Teleological Mode and BPD

Why the sense of an ending seems so important to recovery in Borderline Personality Disorder.

The Teleological mode is a way of understanding action only in terms of observable outcome. This primitive pre-mentalising way of interpreting behaviour by its results, emerges in childhood as a natural corollary of secure attachment. However if attachment is weak or disorganised to begin with, teleological thinking persists into adulthood, and soon turns a crisis into a cataclysm. It is particularly prevalent in BPD.

Wrong Turns and Dead Ends

Lets start with an example: After a blazing row, your loved one walks out claiming to need space. Feeling abandoned, betrayed and broken, you veer onto a path of self-destruction. Substance-abuse soon turns to self-harm, and finally a trip to the emergency room. Refusing all help things only calm down when your partner returns, hugs you, and takes you home.

1. Expectations are constrained to the physical

In the above scenario, the person with BPD stuck in teleological mode observes their partner walking out and has no choice but to interpret it as an act of abandonment. Expectations are constrained to what’s concrete and visible; In this case, we…