ommunication and even the ability to calm oneself. An infant is born in a symbiotic state in which it is unable to differentiate between itself and the primary care giver. This is the foundation of trust. The caregiver must anticipate the needs of the infant and be able to interpret non-verbal clues, since the infant has no verbal communication skills. When a primary caregiver is unable to sense when the infant is hungry forces the infant into a panic. A pathological caregiver may either join in the infant's panic or ignore it. Both of these responses produce a hysterical infant in physical pain and extreme psychological distress. If the caregiver is unable to respond to the infant, the feelings of helplessness become a predominant part of the infant’s experience. The infant cries and cries, or withdraws, forming the experiential belief that it cannot survive or find stability. This is the very core of mistrust. The infant learns to mistrust the caregiver and internalizes the experience so as to mistrust itself. Remember the infant is unable to differentiate between the caregiver and itself. This is the foundation of significant distress and an inability to achieve a secure bond that in turn will be transferred to every relationship it has throughout life. The conflict of desperately needing to depend on another but being unable to trust another has begun formation. The conflict is then acted out throughout life in an attempt to resolve it. This inability to form a confident reliance in a primary relationship produces the basic underlying pathology for borderline, narcissistic and paranoid personality disorders. Significant characteristics of the borderline personality disorder include patterns of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships, characterized by alternating between extremes of devaluation and over-idealization. A similar characteristic of the narcissistic personality disorder is continuous explo...
