Treatment of patients in the borderline spectrum: an overview

My purpose here has been to provide no more than a brief overview of an approach to the therapy of borderline patients in the framework of a spectrum view of this complex pathology. While the perspective, generated within a tripartite framework of alliance, transference, and countertransference, allows the therapist a sense of orientation and direction in pursuing the therapeutic work with these patients, it can provide little more than guidelines, a theoretical context for thinking about the therapeutic vicissitudes that challenge and frustrate all of us. Within this perspective, I would emphasize the importance of flexibility. The complexity of therapeutic interactions and the wide scope of variation, seen not only in the borderline spectrum itself but in individual patients, calls for an unusual degree of flexibility and therapeutic adaptability to the immediate demands of the ongoing therapeutic interaction. If therapists, as they are being buffeted about by the storms and unsuspected undercurrents of the therapeutic ocean, can at least keep their bearings and know when they are being pulled out of their therapeutic role and function, their ability to deal with and help their patients will be immeasurably enhanced. I would hope that these few guidelines would provide a workable compass for the task.