“It's Kind of My Job to Post Perfect Stuff, But Kind of Not “ – How Influencers with Borderline Personality Organisation Become Activists for a Salutogenic Personal Recovery in the Instagram Stories

Abstract

This study examines the communication strategies of individuals with Borderline Personality Organisation (BPO) using Instagram stories, a platform commonly used by this population. BPO, the most common personality disorder in clinical settings, results from childhood neglect and abuse and for example leads to problems with emotion regulation, relationship maintenance and identity stability. This study takes a psychoanalytic perspective and analyses Instagram stories to understand how individuals with BPO communicate their lives with this disorder and how Instagram co-constitutes this communication. Using sociological-hermeneutic video analysis and grounded theory methodology, the study breaks down Instagram stories into formal and content dimensions and uncovers conflicts between the communicated content and the technological functions of Instagram in order to hypothesise about incorporated conflicts of the influencers. This provides access to their dialectical mediation between inner experience and external conditions which is disturbed in people with BPO. The study is only the second to examine the personal recovery process of people with BPO through narratives on a social media platform. It builds on previous research by providing a detailed description of the stages of recovery, describing the intertwining nature of recovery dimensions, and identifying a communicated meaning of life. The study addresses the affective turn in a salutogenic way and offers insights into how Instagram as a medium can symbolise societal pathogenic structures and at the same time be used by protagonists to develop a salutogenic attitude towards mental health.