ABSTRACT
This chapter looks in greater detail at how the individual with a borderline psychology might present in analysis, the particular interpersonal/analytic issues that may arise, and the traditional ways the issues have been thought about. The narcissistic wounding calls up primitive defensive reactions which become incorporated into narcissistic, borderline, schizoid, hysteric, or obsessional personality organisations, which are all forms of narcissistic defence. It argues that psychoanalytic theorists have insufficiently understood or addressed the traumatic roots and outworkings of these phenomena. Gunderson and Singer, in a classic paper giving an overview of the term, describe the individual with a borderline psychology as typically forming an intense relationship with the therapist, and having a strong tendency to regress. The difference between benign and malignant regression can be explained precisely by whether the individual's ego-functioning is fundamentally disrupted and compromised, as for the individual with a borderline psychology, or whether the individual's ego-complex can operate fairly effectively despite their traumatic complexes.
