Autoerotism in patients with borderline personality organization: A case of wristcutting and bulimia

This paper is an investigation of some manifestations of autoerotism in patients with borderline personality organization. Symptoms involving somatic sensations and experiences are prominent in Kernberg's list of presumptive diagnostic elements for borderline conditions. It is postulated here that many such symptoms are autoerotic attempts to represent and resolve the difficulties around primitive aggression and associated lack of self-other differentiation that are central to borderline pathology. This is illustrated using case material from the treatment of a young woman who presented with symptoms of wristcutting and bulimia.Early versions of this paper were presented at the Eleventh Annual Symposium of the New York Center for Psychoanalytic Training in April, 1986, and the Mid-Winter Meeting of the Division of Psychoanalysis, American Psychological Association, April, 1987.