Prologue

When, on April 4, 1988, Sheppard Pratt Hospital opened its new Education Center, the occasion was celebrated with the hospital's 25th annual Scientific Day program. The theme for this program, “Psychoanalytic Perspectives on the Borderline Patient,” was of great interest to the hospital and the psychoanalytic community of Baltimore and Washington. Jacob Arlow, Clarence Schulz, Arnold Goldberg, and Joseph Lichtenberg were invited to discuss, from their different psychoanalytic viewpoints, the case of a borderline patient who had been treated for a year as an inpatient on our Personality Disorder Treatment and Research Unit.

The patient's therapist, Susan Pearson, opened the program by presenting the case. This was followed by individual discussions of the case by Drs. Arlow, Schulz, and Goldberg, representing the classical, object relational, and self psychological perspectives. Dr. Lichtenberg then formally contrasted these viewpoints and added his own discussion of the case based on his theory of motivational systems. The program ended with a panel discussion and open dialogue with the audience in which these four viewpoints were compared and contrasted. This was such a rich and stimulating day that we subsequently asked Harold Searles (who was present in the audience), Murray Jackson (from the Kleinian school), and Ernest Wolf (a preeminent interpreter of self psychology) to add discussions on the case from their perspectives.

We believe this report of our program captures the spirit of inquiry and creative thinking that was so apparent at this inaugural conference for the Education Center.