ABSTRACT
There have been many attempts in the past to illuminate the symptomatology of borderline personality disorder using attachment theory. Implicitly or explicitly, Bowlby's suggestion that early experience with the caregiver serves to organize later attachment relationships has been used in explanations of psychopathology in BPD. For example, it has been suggested that the borderline person's experiences of interpersonal attack, neglect, and threats of abandonment may account for a perception of current relationships as attacking and neglectful (Benjamin 1993). Others have suggested that borderline individuals are specifically characterized by a fearful and preoccupied attachment style reflecting "an emotional template of intimacy anxiety/ anger" (Dutton, Saunders, Starzomski, and Bartholomew 1994). In studies of AAI narratives of borderline patients, the classification of "preoccupied" is most frequently assigned (Fonagy et al. 1996) and, within this, the "confused," "fearful," and "overwhelmed" subclassification appears to be most common 344(Patrick et al. 1994). Not surprisingly, such patients also tend to be unresolved with regard to their experience of trauma or abuse.
