ABSTRACT
In conjoint psychotherapy, we discover how certain dynamic mechanisms of the narcissist (guilt, grandiosity, idealization, withdrawal) arouse intense anxieties in the borderline and, conversely, how the dynamics of the borderline (shame, envy, splitting, massive denial, abandonment, persecutory anxieties) arouse intense feelings of guilt and self-hatred in the narcissist. Who are these characters that relentlessly invade and infect the human psyche? They are all too familiar to our clinical ears: the rejecter, the withholder, the robber, the exciter, the tormentor, the judge, and other harsh authority figures. As therapists/analysts, we have the opportunity not only to discover the type of object the partner has internalized, but also to establish a clearer sense of how they play themselves out. Once this is established, we can then open the past wounds and the torn childhoods to examine and explore the origins of the traumas (the V-spot) that have followed the narcissist and borderline into adulthood.
