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I have always been greatly influenced by Arlow's work on the layering of unconscious fantasies (1969a, 1969b), by Arlow and Brenner's writings on the structural theory , and by Brenner's writings on affect theory and defense theory (1974, 1975, 1976, 1979). In my mind all of these considerations have culminated in Brenner's book, The Mind in Conflict (1982). These are the writings that had the most profound effect on my own theoretical ideas and my own technique. In addition, I was a member of the Kris Study Group chaired by Dr. Brenner, which from 1973-1977 studied borderline patients. It was this experience that formed the basis for the monograph, Borderline Patients: Psychoanalytic Perspectives (1983) which I wrote with Drs. Abend and Willick.
When the Kris Study Group began, there was a relative consensus in the analytic literature about the dynamic understanding of sicker patients. Many analysts still hold to these views today. It was and is written that these patients have psychopathology which develops almost exclusively from the preoedipal years and that they suffer from a different form of anxiety which has to do more with loss of or annihilation of the self rather than from castration anxiety. Because their conflicts stem from the preoedipal years of life, they utilize primitive defense mechanisms which are different from those present in healthier patients. These defense mechanisms, particularly splitting and projective identification, make it impossible for them to develop a stable sense of identity. They do not suffer from superego conflicts