Intensive psychodynamic therapy with borderline patients: an overview

Abstract

The author reviews major controversies in the literature regarding techniques of intensive psychodynamic therapy with borderline patients. These include debates about the importance of content versus process in the therapist's early interventions, the origins of transference, the primacy of positive versus negative transference in therapeutic work, the usefulness of early interpretation of negative transference, and the therapist's role in providing "corrective" experiences. He suggests that different conceptions of borderline psychopathology, different patient populations studied, variations in therapists' personality styles, and emphasis on different phases of treatment may account for the diversity of treatment techniques advocated in the literature.