Complex trauma and borderline personality disorder

Abstract

The aim of this article is to bring together the con-cepts of borderline pathology and complex trauma. We wish to show that the symptomatology character-istic of borderline pathology approaches, is indeed similar to, that of Non-Specific Extreme Stress (NSES) states. Thus the hypothesis is that states of NSES and borderline pathology constitute psychopathological entities which overlap but reflect different paradigms. The former is linked to the field of psychotraumatol-ogy while the latter is more rooted in psychoanalytic theory. In this way traumatic etiology opens the way for the clinician to explore new psychotherapeutic strategies.