THE STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION OF THE PREDOMINATING SYMPTOM IN SOME BORDERLINE CASES

The predominating symptoms of the patients I have been describing have been accompanied by anxiety and they have served the function of protecting them from further developments of their psychoses. These are the patients whom a descriptive psychiatrist might classify as borderline because they have neither delusions nor hallucinations and are, therefore, not regarded as legally commitable. They are unlike the ambulatory schizophrenias described by Gregory Zilboorg, but they are representative of patients who suffer from the same group of illnesses, i.e. schizophrenias which are modified by a predominant symptom that is associated with anxiety.