In The Borderline Culture: Intensity, Jouissance, and Death, Željka Matijašević argues that the psychological descriptor, “borderline,” should be extended to encompass the main facets of contemporary Western culture: splitting, affective dysregulation, intensity, and the polarization of good and bad objects.

In The Borderline Culture: Intensity, Jouissance, and Death, Željka Matijasević examines contemporary culture through psychological borderline theory.

This volume offers guidelines for managing the therapist-patient relationship during crisis intervention and longer-term therapy with patients who exhibit borderline symptoms. Since to do no harm is the primary goal of any therapist who encounters such a patient, an appropriate therapist-patient relationship is crucial; moreover, skillful management of this relationship can, in itself, be the most effective and safe treatment. The authors present a conceptual model, based on self psychology and interpersonal theory, for reframing the borderline symptoms and the therapist's reactions. Case examples demonstrate effective relationship management and therapeutic interventions.

"A superb, up-to-date feminist analysis of the borderline condition. . . . Characterized by stereotypically feminine qualities, such as poor interpersonal boundaries and an unstable sense of self, borderline diagnosis has been questioned by many as a veiled replacement of the hysteria diagnosis. . . . Wirth-Cauchon includes narratives from women exhibiting the theoretical underpinnings of the borderline diagnosis. . . . The author is rigorous in her analysis, and mainstream academics and diagnosticians should take note lest they create yet another label that disregards the contradictory and conflicting expectations experienced by so many women. Includes an excellent bibliography and a wealth of good reference. Highly recommended."-Choice "This book contributes to a rich, feminist interdisciplinary theoretical understanding of women's psychological distress, and represents an excellent companion volume to Dana Becker's book titled Through the Looking Glass."-Psychology of Women Quarterly "Wonderfully written. . . . [The] argument proceeds with an impeccable and transparent logic, the writing is sophisticated, evocative, even inspired. This work should have enormous appeal."- Kenneth Gergen, author of Realities and Relationships "Impressive in its synthesis of many different ideas . . . both clinicians and people diagnosed with BPD may find much of value in Wirth-Cauchon's thoughtful and provoking analysis."-Metapsychology At the beginning of the twentieth century, "hysteria" as a medical or psychiatric diagnosis was primarily applied to women. In fact, the term itself comes from the Greek, meaning "wandering womb." We have since learned that this diagnosis had evolved from certain assumptions about women's social roles and mental characteristics, and is no longer in use. The modern equivalent of hysteria, however, may be borderline personality disorder, defined as "a pervasive pattern of instability of self-image, interpersonal relationships, and mood, beginning in early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts." This diagnosis is applied to women so much more often than to men that feminists have begun to raise important questions about the social, cultural, and even the medical assumptions underlying this "illness." Women are said to be "unstable" when they may be trying to reconcile often contradictory and conflicting social expectations. In Women and Borderline Personality Disorder, Janet Wirth-Cauchon presents a feminist cultural analysis of the notions of "unstable" selfhood found in case narratives of women diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. This exploration of contemporary post-Freudian psychoanalytic notions of the self as they apply to women's identity conflicts is an important contribution to the literature on social constructions of mental illness in women and feminist critiques of psychiatry in general. Janet Wirth-Cauchon is an associate professor of sociology at Drake University.

Architecture on the Borderline interrogates space and territory in a turbulent present where nation-state borders are porous to a few but impermeable to many. It asks how these uneven and conflicted social realities are embodied in the physical and material conditions imagined, produced or experienced through architecture and urbanism. Drawing on historical, global examples, this rich collection of essays illustrates how empires, nations and cities expand their frontiers and contest boundaries, but equally how borderline identities of people and places influence or expose these processes. Empirical chapters covering Central Asia, the Asia Pacific region, the American continent, Europe and the Middle East offer multiple critical insights into the ways in which our spatial imagination is contingent on ‘border-thinking’; on the ways of being and navigating frontiers, boundaries and margins, the three themes used to organise their content. The underlying premise of the book is that sensitisation to border conditions can alter our understanding of the static physical spaces that service political or cultural ideologies, and that the view from the periphery opens up new ways of understanding sovereignty. In exploring these various spaces and their transformative subjectivities, this book also reveals the unrelenting precarity of contesting and living on the margins, and related spaces and discourses that are neglected or suppressed.

First published in 1990. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Reinterpreting the Borderline is a timely and comprehensive analysis of Heidegger’s philosophy and its relevance to the clinical fields of psychiatry, psychotherapy, and psychoanalysis. Cammell presents the key elements of Heidegger’s philosophy and further explores affiliations with other key philosophers influenced by Heidegger. By applying these philosophical ideas to developmental models and clinical treatments of borderline personality disorder, Cammell develops a system of ideas he terms “hermeneutic ontology,” exploring the fundamentally relational, embodied, affective, temporal, and technical aspects of existence that become problematized in the experience of “the borderline”--both for the suffering individual and the concerned clinician. Cammell posits that “borderline experience” extends beyond the suffering individual to the context of the psychotherapy itself, something in which the therapist and suffering individual must collaborate to overcome. Reinterpreting the Borderline provides a rich and complex study toward simultaneously overcoming the divide between theory and practice, philosophy and psychotherapy, and finally the borderline between suffering individuals and their concerned clinicians.

In How to Talk to a Borderline, Joan Lachkar introduces Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and outlines the challenges and difficulties it presents to clinicians. She expands current understanding of BPD by outlining eight different kinds of borderline personality disorders and how each of these requires specific communication techniques and methods. Case examples are offered throughout the text and in some cases describe the kinds of partners borderlines attract. This book offers new approaches to communicating, working with, and treating borderline personality disorders while integrating more contemporary treatment methods.