Borderline Patients: Extending the Limits of Treatability

Borderline conditions are a growing presence in the treatment room, yet they are uncommonly resistant to treatment. Dr. Kernberg and his colleagues have already articulated the modality they call Transference-Focused Psychotherapy. Now, in an unusually textured elaboration, they confront the complications that limit treatability—co-existing psychopathologies, early trauma/dissociation, problems endemic to the therapeutic situation (attachment disturbances, erotic transferences)—and bring new rounds of clinical ammunition to meet those challenges.