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Abstract

I discuss here the therapy of three borderline cases and one neurotic patient. I aproach this from the point of view of Hermann's (1984) theory of clinging. I observe two patterns of clinging in the transference. The typical sequence exhibited by a homosexual borderline patient and by a strongly regressed neurotic one was the following: first the idealizing transference together wtih the intensification of the desire to cling appeared, followed by the negative phase of angry disappointment, aggression and autoaggression. I assume that this latter phase was primarily a reaction to the unsatisfiability of the desire to cling. In the case of two other female borderline patients the frustration of the desire to cling manifested itself in a form of mental and bodily paralysis, rigidity and inhibition. This repeated a feeling that originally arose in connection with, and typically in the physical presence of the mother.