The term "borderline" was initially used in the late nineteenth century to describe a class of severe mental conditions that were similar to but less malignant than the psychoses. With the development of ego psychology, the notion of analyzable disorders of secondary-process ego functions gained prominence. The British psychoanalysts viewed these conditions as disorders of object relations. Later, these views were incorporated into the current psychoanalytic concept of borderline personality organization that refers not to a specific syndrome but to an adaptive or defensive stance that originates in very early trauma. The authors of DSM-III and DSM-III-R