Supportive Therapy for Borderline Patients: A Psychodynamic Approach by Lawrence H. Rockland Diagnosis and Treatment of Mental Disorders. New York:  Guilford, 1992,  xii + 308 pp., $30.00 The Narcissistic/Borderline Couple: A Psychoanalytic Perspective on Marital Treatment by Joan Lachkar New York:  Brunner/Mazel, 1992,  xiv + 242 pp., $28.50 Psychotherapy of the Submerged Personality edited by Alexander Wolf and Irwin L. Kutash Northvale, NJ:  Jason Aronson, 1991,  xx + 278 pp., $40.00

Although the borderline patient was first identified nearly 60 years ago, it was not until the 1960s that the borderline diagnosis took center stage as a major psychoanalytic controversy. There is little question that the systematic and comprehensive writings of Otto Kernberg (1967, 1975) were instrumental to the excitement and the controversy. The technical approach he advocated to the treatment of borderline patients was a modified but highly expressive psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Ever since the appearance of Kernberg's work, one of the liveliest dialogues within the psychoanalytic literature has revolved around two primary issues: (1) the diagnostic conceptualization of the borderline condition and (2) the most useful psychotherapeutic approach to patients with the borderline diagnosis. These three books, here grouped together for purposes of review, continue that dialogue with varying degrees of cogency.

The most impressive of the three contributions is Lawrence Rockland's manual that outlines a supportive psychotherapeutic approach for borderline patients. The author's assertion that the majority of borderline patients require a form of psychotherapy that is more supportive than expressive has now received considerable backing from empirical studies (Horwitz 1974; Horwitz,