Descriptions and attempts to define and analyze the etiology of "borderline" disorders in adolescents have appeared primarily in the American psychiatric literature since 1954 (Ekstein and Wallerstein). Esman provides a succinct review (with enormous bibliography) of this somewhat elusive subject. He also describes the gamut of treatments employed, ranging from classical psychoanalysis to family therapy, and suggests that both theory and therapeutic technique advocated by numerous experts may be consolidations and "codifications" of work deriving from their individual personality styles. He concludes that we still "remain on the frontiers of understanding." More systematic, scientific investigation is necessary.