Treatment of borderline patients in a multiple-treater setting

For all the problems and challenges inherent in a multiple-treater setting, there are great advantages in being part of a treatment team. Colleagues provide a holding and containing function for each other in the treatment of these extraordinarily difficult patients. Marcus observed that "the problem with the sickest patients is that the affects are uncontainable by a single individual. The affects are more easily containable by the group, because at any one moment some members are not under direct threat and, therefore, can maintain an observing ego" (p 251). The different treatment relationships offer the borderline patient numerous opportunities to internalize new modes of object relatedness through the process of reintrojecting what they have projected into others. The cumulative effect of a group of caring professionals who are doing their best to process and understand what is happening can be highly therapeutic.