Am J Psychiatry 1987; 144:267-274
Copyright © 1987 by American Psychiatric Association
Intensive psychodynamic therapy with borderline patients: an overview
RJ Waldinger
The author reviews major controversies in the literature regarding
techniques of intensive psychodynamic therapy with borderline patients.
These include debates about the importance of content versus process in the
therapist's early interventions, the origins of transference, the primacy
of positive versus negative transference in therapeutic work, the
usefulness of early interpretation of negative transference, and the
therapist's role in providing "corrective" experiences. He suggests that
different conceptions of borderline psychopathology, different patient
populations studied, variations in therapists' personality styles, and
emphasis on different phases of treatment may account for the diversity of
treatment techniques advocated in the literature.
