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At the centre of this book is an interesting and challenging idea: that hope is not always a good thing. In particular, the author sets out a convincing argument for the role that hope may play in the economy and maintenance of certain aspects of borderline psychopathology.
Potamianou contends that central to the pathology of borderline states are difficulties in the regulation of internal and external boundaries. In relation to this she sees two economic aspects of mental functioning as being of special importance: difficulties in maintaining the balance between cathexes and countercathexes; and the low degree of fusion of the life and death instincts. In the economy of non-borderline individuals Potamianou identifies hope as serving the function of a binding cathexis,
based on a stable image of the subject's self-esteem, which accepts the idea of the good that is to come, and trusts in future possibilities and the relation to objects.
This is the type of hope that we are all, I think, used to thinking about. This is hope that derives from the individual's capacity to establish and preserve a good internal object. In the case of borderline states, however, she