Right on the money: disability forms and the hospitalized borderline patient

Handling of the hospitalized borderline patient's request for disability compensation reflects the therapists's success or failure in keeping a sustained focus on splitting. This focus is crucial to the subacute hospital treatment of borderline psychopathology. Overprotectiveness or withholding of appropriate support results from countertransference reactions. Splitting is reinforced rather than minimized if the therapist fails to focus both on the damaged and overwhelmed aspect of the personality (how the patient feels) and on the irresponsible and manipulative aspect (what the patient does). The therapist who fails to respond to the disparate aspects in an integrated way risks acting out key aspects of the clinical picture to the detriment of successful subacute hospital treatment. The therapist's awareness of typical patterns of splitting can be enhanced by considering the patient's developmental history; current familial and vocational relations (or lack of them); and the patient's relation to the hospital staff.