What splitting means, why someone can suddenly seem entirely good or bad, and how to recover a fuller picture without excusing harm or abandoning boundaries.
This material is for informational and educational purposes only and is not medical, psychological, or psychotherapeutic advice. If you are experiencing an acute psychological condition or need professional support, please contact a doctor, psychologist, psychotherapist, or crisis service.
Elena leaves her first meeting with a new manager almost elated. The manager listened carefully, remembered her idea, and said the team had been missing exactly this perspective. Within days, Elena is telling friends that she has finally found someone who sees her. She overlooks the manager’s lateness and sharpness with colleagues because every detail now belongs to a bright portrait.
A month later, the manager postpones an agreed presentation and replies curtly to a message. Elena feels heat in her chest, deletes the draft of a new project, and tells a colleague that the woman was false from the beginning. There is almost no room between “she is exceptional” and “she is terrible.” This is one way black-and-white perception can work: it quickly organizes an intense experience while removing part of the evidence from view.
Splitting and black-and-white thinking are related, but not identical
In psychodynamic traditions, splitting describes experiencing contradictory qualities of oneself or another person separately. When one side is emotionally available, the other seems to disappear: a caring partner becomes entirely dangerous, while a person who was admired becomes worthless.
Black-and-white, or dichotomous, thinking is a broader description of conclusions with only two poles: success or failure, loyalty or betrayal, strength or weakness. It can emerge under stress, during conflict, with perfectionism, depression or anxiety, and in ordinary life without indicating a personality disorder.
The concepts overlap, but neither is a diagnosis by itself. One sweeping conclusion after an argument cannot establish personality structure, and the word “splitting” does not automatically explain why a person reacted as they did.
Why an extreme conclusion can bring brief relief
Uncertainty requires effort. A person must remember kind and painful episodes, check another person’s intentions, acknowledge their own mistakes, and tolerate not knowing how a conversation will end. A firm category reduces that strain: if someone is “bad,” there is no need to keep wondering. A review of harmful belief rigidity connects dichotomous thinking with inflexible judgment and places it within social conditions and polarization as well as individual cognition (Belief traps review).
Strong arousal narrows attention. Evidence that supports the current state comes to mind more readily, while conflicting memories become harder to access. This does not make the feeling false. It may accurately signal hurt, fear, or disappointment, although a global verdict needs its own examination.
Elena: from admiration to a verdict
When the manager supported her in that first meeting, Elena felt more than professional approval. After years with a critical supervisor, the attention meant: I will not be humiliated here. The hope was real, but it carried an unspoken condition—the new person had to remain free of serious mistakes.
The postponed presentation touched both the current project and Elena’s old expectation of being devalued. She did not invent the curt reply. She received little explanation and had every right to ask for clarity. Her conclusion that the manager was entirely false, however, contained more than the known facts.
The next day, a colleague recalled that the manager had protected the team during a budget cut and had been equally terse with everyone before an urgent meeting. This did not erase her poor decision. It added detail: the same person could offer support in one episode, fail in another, and have reasons Elena did not yet know.
Elena did not force herself to admire the manager again. She asked why the plan had changed, described the impact on her work, and agreed on how future delays would be communicated. Her judgment became more precise, and so did her boundary.
Where this way of seeing may come from
Psychodynamic theories describe early development as a gradual integration of different experiences of the same caregiver: the person can soothe and frustrate, be present and be absent. This is a useful model for understanding how the capacity to hold contradictions may develop.
The model should not become a single proven cause. Current stress, experience of unsafe relationships, emotion-regulation skills, social environment, health, and the immediate context can all influence polarized conclusions. One reaction cannot reveal an entire childhood.
Idealization and devaluation in close relationships
Early in a relationship, a partner may seem like the only person who truly understands. Unpleasant details receive generous explanations, and differences feel charming. After lateness, refusal, or an insensitive comment, the same filter can reverse: earlier care appears manipulative and every neutral gesture confirms betrayal.
A useful question is: did the whole person change, or did I encounter an action I could not previously include? The answer may be painful. Sometimes the evidence does show repeated deception or contempt. A complex picture serves an accurate decision; it does not require reconciliation at any cost.
How polarization appears in different parts of life
A team looks for a hero and a culprit
After success, one leader receives all the credit. After failure, the same person becomes the cause of every problem while deadlines, systems, and the team’s contribution disappear. Distributing responsibility helps improve a process; a global label only changes camps.
A child is “wonderful” today and “ungrateful” tomorrow
Parental exhaustion can make one judgment cover the whole child. A tidy room proves the child is wonderful; an argument that evening means they are impossible. Naming behavior specifically protects both accountability and the child’s larger identity.
A feed strengthens one portrait
Short videos and a selection of agreeing comments can make one interpretation feel self-evident. An algorithm does not have to invent facts to narrow a picture; repeatedly showing the same kind of episode is enough. Lateral source checks and fuller context restore what was left outside the frame.
One mistake becomes a verdict about the self
A rejection arrives and within minutes “this text was declined” becomes “I am talentless and never finish anything.” Complexity begins with grammar here: name the event, its consequence, and the next step instead of turning identity into the summary of one day.
What this has to do with borderline personality disorder
Extreme views of oneself and others can be part of borderline personality disorder, but they are not unique to it. NIMH emphasizes that symptoms, frequency, and severity vary and that diagnosis requires a comprehensive professional assessment.
Statements such as “these patients exhaust everyone” relocate the difficulty of care into a person’s character and reinforce stigma. A systematic review of lived experience describes othering, being treated as a burden, and delayed care associated with discrimination (stigma review).
Relationship difficulties can still be severe and require consistent boundaries. The condition is not hopeless: evidence-based psychotherapies are available, and a systematic review reports benefits for several structured approaches (psychotherapy review).
When clinicians begin seeing different “patients”
On one team, a psychologist may meet a frightened person, a nurse a demanding one, and a physician someone declining recommendations. The disagreement does not prove that a patient deliberately “split the staff.” Reactions reflect different encounters, professional roles, workload, rules, and the person’s actual behavior in each episode.
A shared chronology of facts, consistent boundaries, supervision, and non-stigmatizing language help the team notice its own polarization while maintaining safety and accountability.
Holding two truths does not excuse harm
Someone may have supported you in a crisis and later violated an important boundary. Both events remain true. Recognizing earlier care does not create an obligation to stay, and naming harm does not require rewriting the entire past as deception.
A mature judgment may end in distance, a complaint, resignation, or ending contact. Its distinguishing feature is attention to evidence, repetition, risk, and personal values, rather than a need to make the other person wholly good or wholly bad.
When there is physical or sexual violence, stalking, threats, financial control, or fear for safety, protection takes priority. Looking for an abuser’s “good side” or initiating direct confrontation can be dangerous; contact a qualified local service or professional for help with a safety plan.
What to do when the whole picture suddenly changes
Before a major decision, take as much time as safety permits. Then work through a short sequence:
- Describe one event without “always,” “never,” or a claim about hidden motive.
- Name the emotion, bodily response, and impulse: withdraw, attack, prove, punish, or restore the ideal image.
- Ask what changed: one action, a new fact, or a repeated pattern.
- Recall two facts that do not fit the current verdict. They do not erase the event; they test whether the picture is complete.
- State a boundary or request concerning specific behavior.
- Choose an action you will still be able to explain after the intensity has decreased.
If additional evidence confirms danger, complexity should not postpone protection. If the verdict begins to loosen, there may be room for a conversation, observation, or a revised decision.
Practice: Two truths and one action
Choose a situation in which your view of someone, or yourself, changed very quickly. On one page, write:
- What literally happened?
- What global conclusion appeared?
- Which facts support it?
- Which facts does it leave out?
- Which two conflicting truths may both be present?
- What boundary, conversation, or pause is needed now?
- What will show me in one week that the decision was useful?
The exercise restores access to a wider picture. It does not require excusing another person or forcing yourself to feel warmth.
If an extreme judgment arrives with a sense of suddenly becoming small, helpless, or all-knowing, read the guide to how Parent, Adult, and Child ego states form and switch. It explains how anger activates a familiar way of experiencing the self without turning one reaction into a diagnosis.
MriyaRun materials for further work
The EQ Emotion Journal can separate a sudden change in judgment into event, thought, emotion, bodily response, impulse, and action.
CBT SHIFT supports examining extreme conclusions and designing behavioral experiments instead of arguing with yourself.
In RedLines “Emotional Detective”, one situation is explored through several hypotheses, practicing the distinction between a first interpretation and a final truth.
The article “Why We Love Personality Types” continues the theme of categories that aid orientation but can reduce a living person to one label.
Sources
When the portrait regains depth
After the conversation, Elena did not decide that her manager was ideal again. She saw someone who could be supportive and communicate decisions poorly; protect the team in one situation and create confusion in another. This portrait is harder to live with, but it allows more precise action.
The capacity to hold two truths does not make us indifferent. It restores choice: what to name, what to ask, where to set a boundary, when to wait, and when to leave. The world does not turn gray. Its details return.
- MriyaRun: Journals, MAC Cards and Self-Reflection
- Self-Discovery
- Splitting and Black-and-White Thinking in Relationships