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.
THE CLINICAL PERCEPTION AND understanding of borderline children is circumscribed by the models we employ (Sandler & Rosenblatt, 1962). Many clinicians find theoretical models useful which resonate with their experience, and clinical descriptions helpful in the conduct of analytic child psychotherapy (Rosenfeld & Sprince, 1965) ; (Ekstein, 1980) ; (Logan, 1985). The paucity of relevant literature, coupled with one's need to conceptually attend to one's clinical work, pushes clinicians to fabricate make-shift theoretical constructions, borrowing a little here, a little there. Such borrowing leaves one theoretically adrift, despite one's conviction of the significance of the treatment.
This paper aims to highlight and outline some of the fundamental clinical implications raised by conceptual formulations on borderline children, while offering alternative views which appear in tune with their developmental realities and clinical presentations.
Pine (1985) recently delineated a comprehensive and clinically-attuned conceptual structure within which so-called "borderline children" might be considered. He suggests two major developmental impairments which distinguish borderline children from others: disturbances in ego functions and in object relations. The sense of reality, reality testing and the signal function of anxiety generally show major dysfunction (Fairbairn, 1941) ; (A. Freud, 1957) ;