On an inpatient ward, a patient praises one nurse extravagantly as "the only person who actually cares," while calling another "completely incompetent and uncaring" after a minor disagreement about visiting hours. By the following week, which nurse is 'good' and which is 'bad' has completely swapped. Before revealing the answer: what is this pattern called, and why does it matter for how the clinical team manages it?

This is splitting: seeing other people as entirely good or entirely bad, a recognised feature of borderline personality disorder's fraught relationship pattern. It matters for team management because, if unrecognised, this pattern can generate genuine disagreement and disharmony within the clinical team itself, as different staff members are unwittingly drawn into the 'good' and 'bad' roles — something worth naming and managing directly as a team, rather than individual staff members being drawn into it without realising what's happening.