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The volume under discussion contains much that is essential in the thinking of one of the most prominent contributors to American psychoanalysis within the last decade. This essay, therefore, is intended as a critique not only of the book, Borderline Conditions and Pathological Narcissism, but of the continuing body of work it represents.2
Most of the papers which make up this book have been widely read and enthusiastically received; their subject matter enjoys a popularity and currency in the psychoanalytic marketplace (and the whole "mental health" field in general)3 which should not be dismissed simply as transient or faddish; and the whole area of the "borderline" has become ineluctably identified with the author's name. Terms such as "splitting," "projective identification," and "internalized object relationships" which not too long ago merely evoked fuzzy associations to alien and dissident psychoanalytic schools of thought have now become an integral part of the lexicon of a large number of American psychoanalysts, candidates, residents, and other workers in allied fields. In fact, no other single colleague has been so instrumental in confronting American psychoanalysts with Kleinian