The American Psychiatric Association indicates about the term Borderline Personality Disorder (301.83) in The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III-R) (1987, p. 346) that "the essential feature of this disorder is a pervasive pattern of instability of self-image, interpersonal relationships, and mood, beginning by early adulthood and being present in a variety of contexts." The Borderline Personality Syndrome, then, represents a complex of associated behaviors that are consistent with the Borderline Personality Disorder.
There are several different opinions as to the exact genesis of this disorder (Straus, 1988). Guntrip, in 1971, and Mahler, in 1972, advanced that ". . . too-early overstimulation of the developing child . . ." results in the development of maladaptive defense mechanisms resulting in the borderline syndrome (Berkowitz, 1983, p. 405). Kroll (1988) reports that various forms of childhood abuse/neglect may be at issue. Briere and Runtz (1986) advance that deindividuation resulting from faulty mother-child relations, in which the mother actively reinforces selective dependent behavior, can result in Borderline Personality Disorder. Further, there may well be parentification training on the part of the mother toward the child. There are, thus, numerous possibilities for the genesis of the borderline disorder.
The developmental theoretical concept underlying the etiology of the Borderline Personality Disorder/Syndrome is founded upon arrest and structural deficits. That is, those persons suffering from this disorder are alleged to have undergone arrested psychological development that produced faulty internalization of representations of self-image and of significant others (Masterson, 1980). Mahler et al. (Dorr, Barley, Gard & Webb, 1983) notes that the mother-child interactions are pathological during the separation-individuation phase (5-36 months). This occurs when the mother, w...