BPD is predisposed early in life in a period where the Right Brain undergoes a growth spurt. Due to circumstances (epigenetically/environmental), there are certain prefrontal/orbitofrontal deficits that later on develop into emotion dysregulation or "emotional hijacking" with a range of severity in co-morbid Complex PTSD.
These prefrontal area's are highly interconnected with emotional systems like the amygdala, specifically the prefrontal/orbitofrontal brain area is known to inhibit emotional responses, which explains why a weakened state causes emotional hyperreacticity. In contrast, the most developed and integrated prefrontal and emotional systems are seen in loving-kindness meditation practitioners.
The "hijacking" by emotion can be seen as a more primitive defense that gets stored implicitly (unconscious) and that causes fragmentation of memory and of the Self. This fragmentation affects perception, representations, attention, cognitions, memory and reflection. This means, becoming aware and integrating these fragmented self-states is also the way to stabilize the system.
"In areas of the personality where trauma has left its mark, many self-states define not simply points of view of their own, but narrative truths of their own, which, as I’ve described earlier, are non-negotiable and protected by a dissociative mental structure…"
—at times our sole focus during the initial part of treatment—is participating in the restoration of fluidity between the dissociated self-state gaps—what I call the capacity for “standing in the spaces...." (Bromberg, 1998)
This prefrontal brain dissociative splitting of self-states (or repression) causes a build-up of unprocessed traumatic energy (avoidance/phobia's of emotions) that involve brain systems like the amygdala (fear center) and hippocampus (memory system), similar abnormalities are also found in non-BPD people diagnosed with PTSD (van der Kolk, Meares).
Because of dissociative defenses these traumatic states become overwhelming and causes people to re-live the past in the present (regressions). Because in that case we fail to differentiate between past traumatic emotions and sensations and the present the trauma is experienced as "now" and never properly worked through and timestamped (keeping the hippocampus online through Mindful Witnessing of "emotional younger parts" and activating an inhibiting Primary positive emotion (Safe, Care, Connection, Play, Pleasure, Importance, Value, Assertiveness) and/or EMDR is known to "timestamp" traumatic energy in the past and release it from the present (IFS unburdening)).
Activating opposing positive emotions and training different Primary emotional systems like 'muscle memory' is hypothesized to override traumatic states and promote Fail-Safe Brain Networks through promoting optimal self-organization of multiple brain systems (Albert, Beatriz Sheldon, 2021). Self-Organization causes a spontaneous order when under the right contitions where systems operate harmonious, flexible, adaptive, coherent, energized and stable (Daniel J. Siegel 2021).
Daniel Hill:
When affect is regulated, the organism is integrated and able to respond flexibly to the internal and external environments. We experience a sense of self-mastery, and indeed, when regulated we are optimally functional. When affect is dysregulated, we become dissociated (disintegrated) and reduced to automated processes and isolated portions of our memory. In other words, the organization of the self is affect state dependent. We organize and disorganize depending on whether or not we are regulated.
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