{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,5,14]],"date-time":"2025-05-14T03:33:04Z","timestamp":1747193584037,"version":"3.40.5"},"reference-count":28,"publisher":"S. Karger AG","issue":"3-4","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2021,12,20]],"date-time":"2021-12-20T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1639958400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/www.karger.com\/Services\/SiteLicenses"},{"start":{"date-parts":[[2021,12,20]],"date-time":"2021-12-20T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1639958400000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/www.karger.com\/Services\/SiteLicenses"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Psychopathology"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2022]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a severe psychiatric condition characterized by instability in identity, relationships, and affect. Individuals, with BPD typically lack a coherent sense of self, are highly sensitive to interpersonal stressors, experience intense fluctuations in mood, and frequently engage in impulsive and self-destructive behaviors. Although both empirical research and development of effective psychotherapy have evidently progressed over the past years, many aspects regarding the structure of experience and the life-world typical for persons with BPD are not yet fully understood. Somewhat surprisingly, phenomenological psychopathology has only recently started to pay more attention to the disorder. A comprehensive elaboration of the phenomenology of BPD is therefore still lacking. This article aimed to contribute to such a phenomenological understanding by focusing on what we think is an essential aspect that has yet not been sufficiently addressed: the background of safety. To clarify what this means, we depart from Sandler\u2019s [&lt;i&gt;Int J Psychoan&lt;\/i&gt;. 1960;41:352\u20136] psychoanalytic concept and elaborate on it phenomenologically. This leads us to argue that the development of a background of safety requires a particular embodied presence of others, which, in turn, contributes to the constitution of a safe we-space, a shared and familiar environment providing a matrix for the experience of a stable world. However, even when established, the background of safety remains in need of a continuous reconfirmation through corresponding experiences within a sufficiently reliable and controllable environment. The background of safety is vulnerable and open to (interpersonal) disruptions like trauma or neglect. In BPD, we suggest 3 aspects regarding the phenomenology of the background of the safety need to be considered: first, typically, patients with BPD did not develop a robust background of safety in infancy; second, weakening of the background of safety gives rise to symptoms and dynamics typical for BPD; third, these symptoms and dynamics further undermine the possible development of a background of safety in adult life and thus gravitate toward a petrification of the borderline condition, a \u201cstable instability.\u201d To conclude, we examine whether this concept should be understood as a &lt;i&gt;trouble g\u00e9n\u00e9rateur&lt;\/i&gt; and, last, consider its clinical implications. <\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1159\/000520860","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,12,20]],"date-time":"2021-12-20T22:00:39Z","timestamp":1640037639000},"page":"168-178","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["Borderline We-Space? The Phenomenology of the Background of Safety in Borderline Personality Disorder"],"prefix":"10.1159","volume":"55","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-9942-5222","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Zeno","family":"Van Duppen","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-2538-1762","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Philipp","family":"Schmidt","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Benedicte","family":"Lowyck","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"127","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,12,20]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1038\/nrdp.2018.29"},{"key":"ref2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1159\/000106468"},{"key":"ref3","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1093\/jmp\/jhz037"},{"key":"ref4","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1080\/07351692509349125"},{"key":"ref5","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1037\/0012-1649.21.1.195"},{"key":"ref6","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/978-1-4899-2462-9_2"},{"key":"ref7","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.3389\/fpsyg.2014.00508"},{"key":"ref8","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1080\/10481881109348606"},{"key":"ref9","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1111\/j.1469-7610.2007.01727.x"},{"key":"ref10","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.4324\/9780429473654-4"},{"key":"ref11","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1159\/000101365"},{"key":"ref12","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/978-90-481-8766-9_16"},{"key":"ref13","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/s11097-010-9189-4"},{"key":"ref14","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1159\/000452768"},{"key":"ref15","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.5840\/philtoday200246supplement18"},{"key":"ref16","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/s10743-019-09254-6"},{"key":"ref17","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1111\/1745-8315.12394"},{"key":"ref18","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1002\/jclp.20241"},{"key":"ref19","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1037\/a0019510"},{"key":"ref20","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1521\/pedi.18.1.36.32772"},{"key":"ref21","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1177\/00030651000480040701"},{"key":"ref22","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.copsyc.2017.09.005"},{"key":"ref23","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.psychres.2017.09.061"},{"key":"ref24","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1097\/HRP.0000000000000040"},{"key":"ref25","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1002\/imhj.20283"},{"key":"ref26","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1521\/pedi.2015.29.5.575"},{"key":"ref27","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1159\/000501526"},{"key":"ref28","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/978-1-4614-8878-1_11"}],"container-title":["Psychopathology"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.karger.com\/Article\/Pdf\/520860","content-type":"application\/pdf","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/www.karger.com\/Article\/Pdf\/520860","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,4,23]],"date-time":"2025-04-23T15:33:41Z","timestamp":1745422421000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/karger.com\/article\/doi\/10.1159\/000520860"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2021,12,20]]},"references-count":28,"journal-issue":{"issue":"3-4","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2022,7,1]]},"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2022,7,5]]}},"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1159\/000520860","archive":["Portico"],"relation":{},"ISSN":["0254-4962","1423-033X"],"issn-type":[{"type":"print","value":"0254-4962"},{"type":"electronic","value":"1423-033X"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2021,12,20]]}}}