Transitional Relatedness and Borderline Personality Disorder

This study examined various aspects of transitional relatedness among individuals diagnosed as borderline or antisocial personality disorder. This study was a follow–up to an earlier report (Cooper, 1983) using the Rorschach Transitional Object Scale, which found only marginal support for Modell's clinical hypothesis that the borderline personality disorder involves a developmental arrest at the stage of the transitional object. The authors approached the concept of transitional relatedness as a series of external and internalized modes of relating including the perceptual capacity to distinguish between object and symbol on the Rorschach as well as self–reported current and past reliance on transitional objects and self–soothing activities. The study failed to provide evidence to suggest that reliance on a past or present transitional object per se is a unique or diagnostic feature of the borderline personality disorder. Particular aspects of current transitional relatedness, however, were strongly associated with borderline psychopathology. The clinical and research implications of these findings are discussed.