The psychiatric literature reveals that the borderline patient was a focus of interest as far back as 1884 and 1890. The word borderline, however, was not used, although from descriptions, patients that we think of as borderline today seem to have been included in case studies. This chapter will set forth briefly the views of some of these early writers and examine them in reference to current theories.

Between 1937 and 1954 , beginning with Adolph Stern, very few papers were written on the borderline patient (about 25 were published including my own first paper in 1952). One of the major findings relating to the borderline during the late 1930s came from the psychologists who worked in the testing field, particularly Rorschach and others who employed projective testing. They discovered that on structured material the borderline did very well, but with the unstructured material the patient showed anxiety and pathological responses.