Borderline Personality Organization and The Transition to The Depressive Position

There are several underlying themes upon which this article is based that require elaboration from the outset. One is that the seemingly different viewpoints about borderline personality organization are an artifact of various authors adhering to differing genetic-developmental points of view. What may appear as contradictory theories at first glance can be seen, in many respects, as varying aspects of an overall theory of borderline personality. What we are really seeing is the complexity of the borderline person. A second issue underpinning this essay is the assumption that borderline difficulties arise developmentally in the transition between the paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions that Melanie Klein outlined. Klein's theories, and the expansion of her ideas by other authors, provide an excellent theoretical umbrella under which the formulations regarding borderline personality organization may be unified. Finally, I am referring to borderline personality organization and not to borderline personality disorder as described in DSM-III. Thus, Kernberg's term is used to indicate a level of ego organization that may include several personality manifestations such as severe masochistic, infantile, schizoid, and so forth.

The two most prominent theories of borderline personality organization are those promulgated by Kernberg and Masterson and Rinsley. Briefly, Kernberg emphasizes the importance of extreme and excessive primitive aggression, especially oral aggression, that results in “the pathological condensation of genital and pregenital aims.” This excessive rage and the need to defend against it result in significant ego weaknesses including poor anxiety tolerance, a tendency toward primary process thinking, and so forth. Kernberg's developmental etiology, about which he offers little discussion,