Review Article Psychopathology Meaning-Making Activity in the Emotional Experience of Borderline Personalities Susi Ferrarello Department of Philosophy & Religious Studies, California State University, East Bay, Berkeley, CA, USA Received: November 3, 2020 Accepted: May 26, 2021 Published online: August 9, 2021 Correspondence to: Susi Ferrarello, susi.ferrarello @gmail.com © 2021 S. Karger AG, Basel karger@karger.com www.karger.com/psp DOI: 10.1159/000517932 Keywords Emotions · Intersubjectivity · Phenomenology · Borderline personality disorder · Validity Abstract This article describes the mereological constitution of con- tents in the intentional acts of people affected by borderline personality disorder (BPD) or emotionally unstable personal- ity disorder (EUPD) in order to shed light on the origin of the emotional instability characterizing this disorder. The article will first discuss the emotional cycle of people affected by this disorder; second, it will focus on the mereological aspect of the meaning-making 1 experience in the intentional act; third, it will show how this meaning-making experience usu- ally interacts with axiological 2 qualities that affect the conti- nuity of their sense of reality. From the investigation, it emerges that the mereological constitution of contents oc- curs in a way that is disruptive of the continuity of BPD/EUP- Ds’ interaffective lifeworld as it generates intersubjective disturbances on the axiological, logical, and ontological lev- els. On this basis, as a concluding suggestion, the paper will propose an alternative way to approach the problem, soothe the disturbance, and encourage integration. © 2021 S. Karger AG, Basel Introduction How can emotions take over reality? How does it hap- pen that an emotional reaction has the power to cloud one’s personal judgment? What can we do to harmonize meanings and emotions? The article will answer these questions through a phe- nomenological description of the mereological constitu- tion of contents in the intentional acts of people affected by borderline personality disorder (BPD) or emotionally unstable personality disorder (EUPD). The continuity of the affective resonance 3 of their interaffective 4 lifeworld 5 1 What meaning-making, sense-making, meaning in life etc. can indicate varies, especially across all psy- and phil-disciplines (including psychiatry, psychology, psychopathology, psychoanalysis, cognitive psychology, the philosophy of mind and so on). For this reason, here follows a literature that can serve as a starting point to clarify the intricacy of these expressions [42–60]. 2 In the text I will write “axiological” in a hyphened and not hyphened way. I use this latter when I need to refer to the value quality proper to this adjec- tive. The former hyphened version helps me to express its intrinsic combi- nation with the meaning/logical components that bring its value content to expression. 3 I define affective resonance as “the capacity to share or become affectively aroused by others” emotions” [40, 41].