Problematic Internal Voices in Clients with Borderline Features: An Elaboration of The Assimilation Model

The assimilation model is an empirically researched account of psychotherapy process, focusing on stages of clients’ change. According to the model, traces of a person's experiences are manifested as agentic internal voices, and personality is understood as a community of such voices. This study focuses on how unassimilated voices appear clinically, and it applies the assimilation model to clients with borderline or dissociative disorders. We introduce the notion of subcommunities of voices, i.e., constellations of voices that appear unassimilated to each other. They are manifested as drastic shifts in self-states and availability of personal resources. We propose five distinctions and illustrate them with clinical examples: Voices or subcommunities (1) may be dominant or nondominant and (2) included in a community to different degrees. They (3) may express broader or more limited segments of experience, which (4) may be processed more or less thoroughly. Finally, (5) they may be avoided or engaged by the community to varying degrees.