You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
January 29, 1990
As Brandchaft and Stolorow note, our disagreements about the borderline concept are not new (Adler, 1984); (Brandchaft and Stolorow, 1984a), (1984b). On the surface, no one can fault the utility of an approach with very narcissistically vulnerable patients that carefully examines the interaction of two people and both of their contributions to the clinical manifestations of the patient's difficulties. I certainly value the importance of such a view, and have given it a central role in work with borderline patients (Adler and Buie, 1979); (Buie and Adler, 1982). It is part of a long psychoanalytic tradition in treating vulnerable, "primitive" patients, i.e., those with severe self pathology or a "basic fault" (Balint, 1968); (Kohut, 1971); (Modell, 1984); (Winnicott, 1965). Brandchaft's