Book Review: Towards a Practical Guide to the Therapy of the Borderline Patient

EFFECTIVE PSYCHOTHERAPY WITH BORDERLINE PATIENTS:CASE STUDIES Robert J. Waldinger, M.D .John G. Gunderson, M.D. New York, Macmillan 1987, 232 page

Editor\u27s Column

An exhibition of paintings of the American Old West caught my attention one afternoon, after I had wandered across the street from our affiliate V.A. outpatient clinic to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. A popular theme among these romanticized views of the American frontier was the image of the trapper; alone, silent figure working at the nation\u27s interface with the unknown. Several paintings depicted a custom known as the rendez-vous, a semi-annual occurrence wherein the trappers gathered eastward to river outposts in order to socialize, trade information and hand-made maps, restock supplies, and display for sale the bounty gleaned from the previous season

Editor\u27s Column

As the Jefferson Journal of Psychiatry continues in its early growth phase, having accomplished a successful synthesis to become a national publication, we note its own apparent power of accommodation equal to the strain of fusing and adjusting internal and external changes. Psychiatric residency in itself demands such accommodation. A group of finishing second year residents were taking stock of the fir st half of this process: They noted the difficulty in reconciling their initial conceptions and intentions with the subsequent realization of the limits to knowledge or intervention; they called this disillusionment. Others spoke of a converse strengthening as better insight into the range of their abilities made them observe more clearly, act with more leverage. This is also disillusionment in the more positive sense

Body-Snatching: Medicine and the Cartesian Threat

Twentieth century physicians are proud to be biological scientists. It is this feature above all others that distinguishes us from our predecessors. Because it is the badge of our progress in medicine, biology is often considered the essential core of medical care. Indeed, we can become so focused upon the biology inmedicine that all other aspects of caring for patients fade into a murky background of ill-defined sentimentality