Team splitting and the ‘borderline personality’: a relational reframe

The discussion of splitting within mental health treatment teams emerged from British object relations theory, a movement concerned with understanding the interplay between individuals in terms of their inner lives. Over time, the terminology used in this domain has become reified and splitting has been discussed in terms that are apt to frame the process as patient-precipitated. This is apt to encourage simplistic inferences, and attribute to patients responsibility for events that are beyond their control. In this article, the historical development of the psychoanalytic account of team splitting is examined and contemporary critiques are reviewed. It is suggested that the resultant one-person picture overlooks the ways that psychoanalytic theory has been subject to controversy and revision. In the last section of the article, I propose that relational innovations in psychoanalytic theory provide a way to rediscover the richness of early descriptions of splitting.