Narrative of motions in the interpersonal space in auto-biographical episodes of borderline and depressive patients

The study restates the validity of narrative psychological content analysis of biographical narratives, and presents a new approach in analysing borderlines' biographical narratives. The relevance of narrative content analysis of the given pathological phenomenon is revealed by presenting former researches (e.g. Westen, 1993). The current research of the motions in the interactive space is introduced. First the term of interactive space is defined and linked to other concepts of the textual spaces (Faragó, 2001). Then the role of approach-avoidance ambitendency in borderline pathology is assigned. We delineate our interview method and coding system used for analysing object-relational episodes. The aim of our analysis was to find specific approach-avoidance code patterns which characterize the ambitendency of movements in borderlines and to compare these to the approach-avoidance patterns in major depressives' object relational episodes. Our results show that the structure of relational movements reflects the 'oscillation' typical of borderlines in contrast to the 'drawing apart' typical of major depressives.