I Hate You--Don't Leave Me: Understanding the Borderline Personality

by Jerold J. Kreisman

SET Communication “SET”—Support, Empathy, Truth—is a three-part system of communication (see Figure 5-1). During confrontations of destructive behavior, important decision-making sessions, or other crises, interactions with the borderline should invoke all three elements. UP stands for Understanding and Perseverance—the goals that all parties try to achieve. The S stage of this system, Support, invokes a personal, “I” statement of concern. “I am sincerely worried about how you are feeling” is an example of a Support statement. The emphasis is on the speaker’s own feelings and is essentially a personal pledge to try to be of help. With the Empathy segment, one attempts to acknowledge the borderline’s chaotic feelings with a “You” statement: “How awful you must be feeling.” It is important not to confuse empathy with sympathy (“I feel so sorry for you . . .”), which may elicit rage over perceived condescension. Also, Empathy should be expressed in a neutral way with minimal personal reference to the speaker’s own feelings. The emphasis here is on the borderline’s painful experience, not the speaker’s. A statement like “I know just how bad you are feeling” invites a mocking rejoinder that, indeed, you do not know, and only aggravates conflict. FIGURE 5-1 The T statement, representing Truth or reality, emphasizes that the borderline is ultimately accountable for his life and that others’ attempts to help cannot preempt this primary responsibility. While Support and Empathy are...