The Psychodramatic Treatment of the Borderline Personality

Abstract

The author identifies, illustrates, and discusses the dynamic and affective issues of the borderline personality and their treatment by the psychodramatic method. These particular issues - the split ego, the conflict between engulfment/symbiosis and abandonment/ depression, the immediacy and intensity of feelings, and the narcissistic way of experiencing self and others-make this patient difficult to treat by "traditional" verbal therapies. Psychodrama, particularly the constructs of act hunger, surplus reality, spontaneity/ creativity, and role expansion, and its use of auxiliaries and role reversals, addresses and incorporates these dynamics and defenses in the treatment. Several case examples from an ongoing psychodrama group in a day treatment center are examined to illustrate the specific applications of psychodrama with this population.