Kapadia S
Int J Psychoanal. 1998 Jun;79 ( Pt 3):513-28.
The author describes his struggle to resolve some theoretical and technical problems posed by borderline patients. For this he has made use of an ancient Indian myth of King Trishanku taken from Bhagwat Puran--the Hindu Book of Genesis. He has tried to demonstrate, step by step, how fruitfully this myth has helped him to understand such patients. Special emphasis has been laid on the language used by borderline patients. The contrary and apparently meaningless nature of this language is likened to the formulation of King Trishanku's unique desire, 'to go to heaven without actually dying'. The author then proceeds to show that this language is not quite as meaningless as it appears to be--that it is the result of a complicated system of projective identification devised by these patients to manipulate their objects in order to achieve their own omnipotent ends. Detailed clinical examples are given to describe the handling of the problems of appropriation, manipulation and consequent suspended state of such patients. Taken from three different stages of various analyses these examples show how a very slow and gradual change was brought about in the mental structures of the patients treated by the author.
作者描述了他在解决边缘性患者所带来的一些理论和技术问题时的艰难历程。为此，他引用了一个源自印度古代神话《毗湿奴往世书》（印度教的创世之书）中关于特里商古国王的故事。他试图逐步证明，这个神话如何卓有成效地帮助他理解这类患者。文中特别强调了边缘性患者所使用的语言。这种语言具有矛盾性且表面上毫无意义，这被比作特里商古国王那独特的愿望的表述：“不经历死亡却升入天堂”。作者接着指出，这种语言并非像看上去那样毫无意义——它是这些患者设计的一种复杂的投射性认同系统的结果，目的是操控他们的客体以实现自身全能的目标。文中给出了详细的临床实例，描述了如何处理这类患者的占有、操控问题以及随之而来的悬置状态。这些实例取自不同分析阶段的三个案例，展示了作者所治疗的患者的心理结构是如何发生非常缓慢且渐进的变化的。
