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.
IN THIS PAPER I WOULD LIKE to focus on the experience of reality for the borderline patient, as well as the experience of reality for those who are treating him, and show how these are determined by the vicissitudes of a particular quality of relationship which borderline patients tend to form in therapy, that is, what I call transitional relatedness (defined below). A typical sequence in therapy will be presented to demonstrate the problems and pitfalls presented by this quality of relatedness, as well as my view of the process of resolution and cure, which I call containment (defined below). Current concepts of the borderline will be shown as failing to take this into account. The discussion will focus on issues of reality testing, reification, addictive properties of the relatedness, division of therapeutic and caretaking responsibilities, and then touch briefly on implications for the classical psychoanalytic situation with the neurotic.
Transitional relatedness is a quality of relatedness described by Modell (1968) and others (Searles, 1976); (Volkan, 1976); (Grolnick, 1978); (Horton, 1979); (Feinsilver, 1980a), which elaborates on Winnicott's