Suicidal behavior in borderline patients: diagnosis and psychotherapeutic considerations

This paper summarizes the experiences with suicidal and parasuicidal behavior of the psychotherapy research project on borderline patients in progress at the Westchester Division of the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center. In the diagnostic evaluation of these patients, it is important to differentiate acute and chronic suicidal behavior with the presence or absence of depression. The dominant psychodynamic features of chronic characterological suicidal behavior are reviewed, with a particular emphasis on the psychopathology of self-directed and projected primitive hatred, and the defenses against its conscious awareness on the part of the patient. A general psychotherapeutic strategy to deal with suicidal and self-destructive behavior is mapped out, centered upon the transformation of self-destructiveness into specific transference constellations that must be diagnosed, interpreted, and gradually worked through in the transference in the course of the treatment. The treatment of chronic, characterologically anchored suicidal behavior without depression requires the setting up of specific structuring of the psychotherapy from the very beginning of treatment, embodied in the establishment of a treatment contract that contributes to the organizing frame for the entire psychotherapy. The precondition for this psychotherapeutic work and limiting factors affecting its effectiveness are spelled out.