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Borderline Disorders in Childhood

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Abstract

Since the mid-1950s, clinicians, theorists, and, more recently, empirical researchers have been involved in an ongoing process of differentiating, defining, and understanding the borderline disorders of childhood. The major emphasis of differentiation and definition has been the clinical explication of the differences among borderline children and psychotic or severely neurotic or acting-out children. Only recently have researchers turned toward the creation of empirical, valid diagnostic criteria and research instruments (Bemporad, Smith, Hanson, & Cicchetti, 1982; Bentivegna, Ward, & Bentivegna, 1985; Greenman, Gunderson, Cane, & Saltzman, 1986; Vela, Gottlieb, & Gottlieb, 1983). Understanding borderline conditions in children has been aided by the various etiological conceptualizations from ego-psychology and psychoanalytic theory.

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© 1990 Plenum Press, New York

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Cicchetti, D., Olsen, K. (1990). Borderline Disorders in Childhood. In: Lewis, M., Miller, S.M. (eds) Handbook of Developmental Psychopathology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-7142-1_27

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-7142-1_27

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4615-7144-5

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