Borderline defenses and countertransference: research findings and implications

Among Main's (1957) several cogent insights about the nature of defensive and countertransferential reactions to those so-called "special" patients who ungraciously refuse to improve - patients who in today's parlance would most assuredly be diagnosed as borderline - is his hypothesis that some of us may flee some of the time into research activities to avoid the frustrations and disappointments of clinical work. Writing from the dual perspectives of researchers and psychotherapists, and with the interest of furthering the integration of these often split-off enterprises, we offer some observations on the amassing body of empirical data about the borderline patient, observations which bear upon and lend support for Main's speculation regarding the detachment of researchers from the emotionally charged dilemmas facing the therapist in working with the borderline patient. We also present some findings from our ongoing investigations of borderline dynamics in groups and organizations, which underscore the role of defensive and countertransferential processes in the psychotherapeutic treatment of borderlines. Finally, based upon our observations of the extant data as well as our own findings, we offer a suggestion about the direction of future research on borderline pathology, proposing a shift away from the largely descriptive-level diagnostic studies and toward the investigation of the therapeutic relationship, with a particular focus on countertransferential dynamics.