To the Editor

I appreciate the opportunity Joyce Lerner's commentary gives me to review my thinking. The intent of the paper was to explore a more holistic concept of borderline phenomena, in particular, that a person is moved in life, in good part, by how he experiences himself. A major point of departure

seems to concern whether and how a borderline person experiences inner conflict. I think Lerner and I are referring to two different aspects of experiencing; that she is talking about the lack of insight, the alienation from self. I understand it is easy to read “experiencing of self” as being identical with insight, but this is not what was intended. I am describing primarily the borderline's experiencing of the consequences of his dividedness, such as confusion, self-hate, and feeling himself to be an outsider. What he is in touch with is his actual self, and though he may not recognize his dividedness in an insightful way, he experiences it in that he lives it out. I would add, though, that while it is less likely that the borderline is insightfully aware, this is not an absolute or definable aspect of being borderline. Some may be acutely in touch with their feeling split. Where insight fails in the larger sense though, is with the inability to see the possibility for change; in effect, to be in touch with the real self.

Another difference in our views concerns whether or not the borderline position is a stable one. Lerner, following Kernberg, says it is— “if the borderline solution is working adequately.” I am describing borderline as representing the relative inability to bind conflict successfully and create a stable (character) solution. Lerner sees borderline behavior as stable, and successful in avoiding the experiencing of conflict. How I see it otherwise may be illustrated by an analogy.

The borderline is a man on a tightrope, high above the ground. He may well claim to himself and the world that he is as perfectly upright as another standing on the pavement (or he