ABSTRACT
In general, postmodern psychotherapists tend to shy away from traditional diagnosis, although they recognize its necessity to satisfy the demands of insurance companies and managed health care organizations. This cautiousness about formal diagnosis is in reaction to an objectivistic, reductionistic, modernist way of de®ning people by their disorder rather than by their unique ways of approaching life dif®culties. Although linguistically it may be convenient to refer to a client with profound dif®culties with interpersonal relationships, fear of real or imagined abandonment, and self-harm tendencies as a ``borderline,'' doing so does little to expand the choices available to this client or to the therapist who works with her or him (Harter, 1995). Thus, postmodern psychotherapists will allow formal diagnosis to inform their therapeutic practice, but not limit its scope.
