The Integration of Character Structure and Personality Organization

Abstract

Theories of both Personality Organization (PO) and Bioenergetic Character Analysis (BA) are born from Psychoanalysis. Due to the influence of a medical model of understanding and treating mental health disorders PO and BA have been taught and developed separately. This article explains PO to the Bioenergetic audience, via the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual, Second Edition (PDM-2), and proposes a circumplex model for how to integrate the two theories. A psychoanalytic understanding of how people can organize their sense of self in a borderline or psychotic way is described, in contrast to a medical model of viewing borderline and psychotic experiences as discreet disorders. A concept of the self is defined and provides the basis for the integration of theories. Dynamics and traits for borderline and psychotic organization are described and contrasted so that a clinician can identify the difference between the two. A case study is presented to demonstrate how the integration of the two theories looks in practice.