Shame, compassion, and the "borderline" personality

This article focuses on the emotionality of the individual diagnosed as "borderline." There may be no clinical condition characterized by so wide a range of affective expression. The author points out that both Kernberg and Kohut view this cohort from the standpoint of drive theory, in which all emotion is traced to drive forces gone awry. Viewed from the perspective of affect theory, it becomes possible to explain this otherwise puzzling cluster of symptoms as the expression of and defenses against the painful emotion of shame. The very concept of a "borderline" illness may prove to be a construction made necessary by previous misunderstanding of shame psychology, and the symptoms themselves perhaps an artifact of a wider, societal misunderstanding of shame.