L’insolence de l’état-limite

Abstract

ObjectivesThis article questions the way in which the “borderline” diagnosis made its way into various nosographies of the 20th and 21st centuries. MethodI examine the psychoanalytical literature from 1938 to the present day that refers to the borderline entity, in an opposition between relevance and inconsistency depending on whether one is pro- or anti-borderline. ResultsThe borderline state, whether it is a question of patients diagnosed as such or of the concept, has asserted itself in a way that I describe as insolent. These patients disturb the framework of the analytical treatment while the concept upsets the theoretical nomenclature in place (psychosis, neurosis, and perversion). Some authors hypothesize that the theorists of the borderline state are driven by the desire (conscious or unconscious) to overthrow the classical nosography and, beyond that, to tear down the foundations on which the Father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, himself relied. The pugnacity of the theorists of the borderline state would thus translate their desire to dethrone the father figure. DiscussionThe discussion focuses on the consequences of the forceful appearance of the borderline state from a clinical point of view. What might be the underlying intention of its inventor (Adolph Stern) and of the theorists who followed him in the elaboration of its organizing principles? ConclusionThe success of the concept of the borderline state is indisputable, in large part because it is a practical and easy diagnosis to make. Its spectrum, which has become extremely broad, undermines its possible clinical relevance. However, this concept has the merit of reviving research on a question that had been temporarily fallen out of fashion: the question of trauma that occurred very early in the life of subjects.