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FROM A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE, an important component of the advances in psychoanalytic ego psychology (e.g., Greenacre, 1964); (Jacobson, 1964); (Kernberg, 1967), (1968); (Mahler, 1968); (Stone, 1954); (Zetzel, 1970; to name but a few) and object relations theory (e.g., Balint, 1968); (Guntrip, 1969); (Modell, 1968); (Winnicott, 1958), (1965) that took place roughly between 1950 and 1970 could be called the "era of the borderline personality organization." Although neither a completed piece of work nor an exclusive concern of the many authors and clinicians who made significant contributions during this time, a major achievement of this period was the elaboration of the concept of the borderline personality organization, the exploration of its pathogenesis and the elucidation of its treatment. Since the early '70's, however, beginning with an earlier series of publications (e.g., Kernberg, 1970), (1974); (Kohut, 1966), (1968), (1971); (Levin, 1969); (Lichtenstein, 1964); (Ornstein, 1974) that at first seemed to address a related, if not similar, type of pathology, the emphasis of this line of analytic exploration seems to have shifted away from borderline personalities to problems of narcissism and the development and disorders of the Self. A major stimulus in the production of this shift, to what one day may be looked back upon as the "era of the narcissistic personality disorders," has been the work of Kohut (1959), (1966), (1968), (1971), (1972), (1977), (1979); (Kohut and Wolf, 1978) and his colleagues (e.g., Gedo and Goldberg, 1973); (Goldberg, 1975), (1978), (1980), (A. Ornstein, 1974); (A. Ornstein and P. Ornstein, 1975); (P. Ornstein, 1974), (1978); (Tolpin, 1971), (1978); (Wolf, 1976). Their contributions, which they have named