THE ENDURANCE OF THE UNSTABLE

This paper deals with the experience of individuals with organized and stable personalities, when they find themselves in a state of acute crisis, lose their ability to organize important mental functions and experience an upheaval in their lives. The paper makes various suggestions to therapists who encounter situations of crisis in their patients and who find themselves dealing with phenomena that seem impervious to extensive therapeutic effort. The paper suggests that this apparent lack of responsiveness to treatment may be related to regressive needs for dependency, for testing the limits of one's personal strengths and for expressing anger at significant others without experiencing paralyzing guilt. The crisis situation is compared to the transitory state of "fragmentation" frequently seen in individuals with borderline personality organization.